


Catalyst

by SeekingSelkies



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Archives Polycule, Biphobia, Can a cat be The Archivist?, Everyone I Love Survives, F/F, F/M, Fix-It, Getting Together, Hallucinations, Internalized Acephobia, Jon pines harder than he does in season 4 canon because it's what he deserves, M/M, More tags to follow as I decide what's actually going to happen, Multi, Mutual Pining, No beta we die like Oliver Banks (and then get better), Rambling about emulsifiers (because that will be my brand in this fandom so help me god), Someone's gotta do the hard work being a chemistry geek and I'm prepared to do this. For us., The Magnus Archives Season 1, The Magnus Archives but if Martin let a cat in instead, There will be apologies for the biphobia. Because I say so., auditory hallucinations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:54:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25822447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeekingSelkies/pseuds/SeekingSelkies
Summary: "There was very little Jon knew about the previous occupant of the Head Archivists desk, save that she had a very abstract approach to organisation, she hadn’t been a fan of him, and she was dead.He knew even less about the current occupant of the Head Archivists desk, save that they were a cat, and they were not supposed to be there"Instead of a spaniel, Martin lets a small black cat into the archives on his first day on the job. In an attempt at pest control, Jon decides to keep them.They are...not your usual cat.
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood/Sasha James/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Tim Stoker, Sasha James & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Sasha James/Tim Stoker
Comments: 123
Kudos: 166





	1. It's like there's a cat in the archives

**Author's Note:**

> Like a cat, I need constant attention and reinforcement so please gift me with your lovely lovely comments!
> 
> Updates inconsistently because that's what happens when you've got work to do and bills to pay and an endless pile of scrubs to wash. Do not let me leave this fic unfinished and abandoned. I must finish this fic if I have to be raised from the dead to do it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin lets a cat into the archives. Better hope the boss doesn't find out
> 
> Unless, of course, said boss is actually very fond of cats.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's very dialogue heavy because that's what I love but I need to work on my descriptive skills so hopefully there will be more of that later on!

There was very little Jon knew about the previous occupant of the Head Archivists desk, save that she had a very abstract approach to organisation, she hadn’t been a fan of him, and she was dead.

He knew even less about the current occupant of the Head Archivists desk, save that they were a cat, and they were not supposed to be there.

“Hello” he held his hand out to introduce himself.

The current occupant of the Head Archivists desk leaned forwards, sniffed his hand with polite curiosity, and drew back to wash their fur.

“You’re very handsome”

They were. Slim, verging on scrawny were it not for the fact their black fur was sleek and well kept, with a triangular face and a pair of wide, curious yellow eyes, the pupils narrowed to slits under the artificial glare of the lightbulb, which flickered above their head. He’d have to talk to Elias about that.

There was a clatter behind him, and the door, still a little ajar after Rosie left, was flung open. The cat bolted off the table and took off down one of the rows of shelving.

“You haven’t seen a cat, have you?” came a soft northern voice which, presumably, was responsible for the flinging of the door. Jon turned

_Oh._

_Also handsome_

They were. In a far less feline way, a fraction too tall for the doorway, with tight black curls and eyes just as wide as the cats, but deep brown, with a gleam that reminded Jon of the tiger’s eye stones he used to buy from the little gift shop every time he went to the science museum just to hold them up and admire how they caught the light.

Jon raised his eyebrows, seeing a twitch of movement in the corner of his eye but refusing to look towards it, unwilling to give away the location of his new companion until he had thoroughly vetted this intruder.

“Why would there be a cat in the Archives?” he said slowly

“Well ‘cause, well, I…”

Jon watched as the stranger became increasingly flustered, tripping over his words in a tangled web until he finally took mercy and interrupted

“Sorry, who are you?”

“Martin! I’m Martin, and well, I sort of, might have…let them in?”  
  
“How?”

“Well, I didn’t, I didn’t mean to, we were outside, making friends, and then I had to come in, but my hands were full, and you know, the doors are heavy, so I had to use my foot, and he just sort of, got past me”

_Making friends?_

_Oh._

As if summoned, the cat appeared beside Jon and began slinking between his legs. He reached down to grab them before they made a break for the wide open door and held them close, eyes fixed on Martin.

“Well, I think I’ve decided to keep them” Jon turned and pressed his face into the cats fur, who, to its credit, made no resistance to being suddenly manhandled “They can be the third archival assistant, I think they’ll be very-”

“Fourth” Martin corrected

“What?”

“Well there’s already three archival assistants. Tim, Sasha, and me”

Jon stared

“You, you’re going to be working in the archives?”

“Yeah, um, Mr Bouchard said I’d be working down here, transferred me down from the library, and I _really_ want to make a good impression on the new boss so it’s great that you two have bonded but I’d appreciate it if you’d help me smuggle them out of here before he notices” Martin’s voice had dropped to a whisper, his eyes darting towards the door.

Jon pursed his lips in an effort not to laugh  
  
“I think the new boss already knows about the cat”

“What? How, how, ok, wait, but he doesn’t know who let them in, does he? So if we leave now, and there’s no cat in the archives when he comes back into his office, he’ll be none the wiser and maybe, maybe, he won’t think I’m completely incompetent before I’ve even started the job!” Martin hissed, reaching out to prise the cat out of Jon’s arms and accidentally brushing his fingers in the process, jerking his hands away at the contact. Jon felt a jolt of static. A short, traitorous laugh escaped him.

“Don’t, don’t laugh at me, I’m serious, I really need this job, wait, sorry, I didn’t catch your name”

“Jon”

“I really need this job, Jon”

Jon raised an eyebrow, his endeavour to cut a stern figure somewhat offset by the cat wriggling in his arms in a bid for freedom, and the smile creeping in at the corner of his mouth.

“Wait. Jon. Oh! Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. You’re…”

“Yes”

Martin’s expression of moderate panic fell, and shifted into the kind of panic reserved for the moment you hear your mother pull into the driveway and realise you didn’t take the chicken out of the freezer to defrost like she asked.

“So you’re my boss”

“It would appear so”

“And I just, I, I, cat”

“It’s alright”

“What?” Martin blinked at him and Jon told himself the twist in his stomach was just because the cat had begun to push their feet against him in a plea to be let down, and nothing at all to do with how obscenely long Martins eyelashes were. He gently lowered the cat, taking advantage of the excuse to look anywhere except into Martins eyes, and watched as they made a beeline for the man himself, curling themselves around Martin’s legs and looking up at him.

“It’s fine. They’ve clearly taken a shine to you. I can’t fault you for that”

“So, so you’re not, I’m not fired?”

“I mean I _could_ dismiss you, in theory, but it’s not like you did it on purpose. It would be a bit harsh to fire someone I’ve just met over a cat, of all things”

Martin closed his eyes and inhaled sharply with relief.

“Oh thank god” one hand went up towards his chest, drawing Jon’s eye towards the soft wool of Martins maroon jumper, drawing in thoughts that he brushed away, crouching down to give the cat another scratch on the head.

“Were you serious?”

“About what?” Jon kept his gaze fixed resolutely on the cat

“Making him one of the archival assistants”

“Oh. Yes, yes I think I was, actually. I mean, judging by the state of the place I dread to think what kind of rodent infestations we’ve got down here, and I’m certainly not running around trying to catch them. An archive cat is exactly what we need”

Jon chanced a single glance up at Martin, who smiled, and Jon could swear the flickering lightbulb above them glowed brighter. 

Irritated by the cessation of scratches, the cat took the opportunity to clamber onto Jon’s lap, craning their head up in a bid for more attention.

“Wait _what_?!” came an incredulous whisper from the corridor, accompanied by two sets of frantic footsteps trying, and failing, not to be noticed.

“The new guy let a cat into the Archives”

“That’s going to go down a treat”

“Exactly. So we need to find it and get it out before he sees-ah. Hi Boss. Hi Martin. Hi…cat”

Tim and Sasha stood, a mixture of shocked and sheepish, in the doorway.

Tim shot Martin a look that said ‘What the hell?!’

Martin slid a look back that said ‘I don’t know but I’m not exactly about to complain about it’

Sasha sneezed. Jon peered at her.

“Sasha…are you allergic to cats?”

“Just a-‘ she stopped to sneeze again ‘-bit”

“Ah”

“They are pretty cute though”

Jon stared into the eyes of the cat on his lap.

“Well. Looks like you won’t be staying here after all” he sighed

“We’re keeping them?” Tim ducked down to offer his hand to the cat, who gifted it a cursory sniff.

“Not here, now. It wouldn’t be fair to Sasha”

At this, the cat gave Jon a steady, inscrutable look, and hopped off his lap to trot towards Sasha, sit directly between her feet and gaze at her, giving her one single, slow blink.

“Ohhhhh” she cooed, reaching to lift them, only to sneeze violently the moment they were in her arms, causing the cat to push away from her, affronted.

“I’ve got some antihistamines. In my coat. If that helps” Martin offered, taking the cat from her and tickling them under the chin. 

Thanks to a lack of reflective surfaces, and the fact he was otherwise distracted, Jon was unaware that the look he awarded Martin at that moment was filled with such admiration that a less discerning eye might mistake it for lovestruck.

Tim’s eyes were discerning enough, but he tucked the observation away. Now was not the time for that line of investigation.

“Thanks Martin” Sasha smiled at him, eyes starting to stream.

“They’re pretty strong though, might make you fall asleep at your desk”

“Worth a shot. I’ll just drink a lot of coffee to make up for it. And maybe we just don’t let him into our office?” she suggested, rubbing one eye.

The three of them filtered out, leaving the cat behind them.

Jon closed his eyes and sighed.

“Well that’s….not ideal”

The cat pressed against his leg, and he looked down at them with a tired laugh.

“What are we going to do?”

He took in the room, the piles of battered and mismatched boxes, the rows of dark wooden shelves, the old-fashioned kind straight out of Antiques Roadshow, housing sloping files that stretched far beyond the reach of the lightbulb, the cobwebs draped across the corners.

“Well. I suppose I have to start somewhere” he sighed, plonking himself in the chair and flipping open the nearest statement, which lay on the top of a precarious pile at the edge of the desk. The cat hopped onto his lap as he pulled his computer out of the bag he’d brought in with him, purring in harmony with the quiet whir of the computer fans.

“Test. Statement of Nathan Watts, regarding an encounter on Old Fishmarket Close. Statement given April 22nd, 2012…”

****

Static. Static. Static.

Fifteen -twenty? - minutes of recording. All of it corrupted.

Jon turned the computer off and on again, his finger pressed sullenly over the button.

Static.

The rest of the computer was working fine. It was only the recording. The fragments that weren’t tinnitus-inducing noise were garbled, incomprehensible. Only one sentence rang clear.

“Can I have a cigarette?”

Clear. But in a voice that sounded nothing like Jon’s. Not Jon-adjacent, not ‘Jon putting a voice on’. Nothing like Jon.

His throat felt dry and scratchy, and he considered getting up and making himself a cup of tea, but the weight of the cat still curled in his lap deterred him. He couldn’t move them. Clearing his throat, he reached for the next statement in the pile. If pressed as to why he didn’t immediately try to re-record the first statement, he couldn’t have told you, except that he simply didn’t have the energy. Not then.

He swallowed.

“Statement of Joshua Gillespie, regarding his time in possession of an apparently empty casket. Statement given November 22nd, 1998.

Statement begins…”

“…there was no sign of John. That was the last I heard of it. I got a new job, moved to London, and now I just try not to think about it.

Statement ends”

His brain felt heavy. Weighted down.

A knock on the door drew his focus away just a fraction.

“Who is it?”

Tim slunk through the door, closing it behind him with a click and leaning against it.  
  
“So…” he grinned, eyes twinkling.

“So?” Jon slid him a look of calculated disinterest.

“What do you think of the new guy?’”

It took a second to shrug off the layers covering his thoughts.

“Martin? He seems….fine”

“Fine? Just fine?”

“I’ve only known the man for 3 minutes, Tim, what else is there to say?”

“Well I’ve known you for substantially longer than 3 minutes and I think your opinion of him stretches a little bit further than just ‘fine’. I’ve got eyes, Jon”

“Then maybe you should go to Specsavers” Jon replied drily

Tim laughed, throwing up his hands in mock surrender.

“Alright alright. Clearly, I was wrong, and that look I saw was nothing but unmitigated loathing and you’re not secretly thinking about moving in with him and the cat and running away to live in a cottage in the depths of Scotland and take numerous photos of Highland Cows”

“Even if I was entertaining thoughts like that, which I’m not, Tim, because when I’m at work I actually think about my job, I doubt my fantasies would be that specific”

“Whatever you say, boss” Tim smirked. “You alright down here? I think Sasha’s fine now she’s drugged up to her eyeballs with antihistamines, you could come up and say hi to everyone if you’re sick of sitting here with nobody but the cat and the spiders for company”

“I was, uh, trying not to think about the spiders”

“All the more reason to get out then! Besides, you’ll have to leave eventually, unless you want your new feline friend making a mess everywhere”

“…good point”

He hadn’t thought about that. How had he not thought about that? It couldn’t _live_ there. Not in the state it was in. He didn’t have a bed, a litterbox, a water bowl, nothing. When had the cat last eaten? It didn’t seem particularly inclined to move, still purring in his lap, but at some point it was going to be hungry.

Another knock broke his train of thought. Tim shuffled away from the door as Martin slipped in, holding a bowl in one hand, a mug in the other, and another shallow bowl balanced on his forearm. He looked different. Probably the lighting.

“I, um, might have snuck to the shop for some cat food. Thought they might be hungry. And water. The tea’s for you” he explained, placing his gifts on the only patch of the desk not covered in statements or the laptop.

“Oh. Thank you, Martin”

Martin smiled, and Jon felt that lurch in his stomach again. He turned his attention back to the laptop, tentatively pressing play.

“What _is_ that?” Tim asked, moving round to lean over Jon’s shoulder to stare at the laptop, which spluttered and wheezed at them.

“Did you drop it in water or something?”

“Yes, Tim, I’m a complete idiot. No. There’s something wrong with the recording equipment. It distorted the last one as well”

Jon stabbed at the buttons in the vain hope that one of them would stop the recording from sounding like it had been stuck in a plant pot and then thrown into the deep end of a swimming pool.

“Give me that” Tim stretched over Jon to grab the laptop, balancing it in one hand with the air of someone about to perform a circus trick. Jon was the last to admit his computer skills left something to be desired but he was fairly certain Tim’s efforts were broadly the same as his, although perhaps a shade less aggressive with his aimless button pressing.

The cat, either smelling the food or hearing the commotion above them, rose from their nap, their small head peeping out from between Jon’s lap and the desk. They leapt up, sticking their head directly into the food bowl, leaving their tail swishing in Jon’s face.

“Hey, you, it’s rude to stick your arse in peoples faces” he chided. The cat chewed on, with a typical feline lack of regard for human etiquette. Martin laughed, a soft, quiet thing with an undertone of uncertainty.

_Do not look up, Jon._

“Jon-“

_Do not look at him_

“Yes, Martin?”

It wasn’t odd to act as though watching a cat eat was the most fascinating thing in the world, was it? No.

“Do you think they’ve already got an owner?”

Jon’s stomach dropped.

“I-I hadn’t thought about it, actually”

If he had looked up, he would’ve seen the quick flash of a pitying smile pass over Martin’s face.

“It’s just, they seem pretty well looked after, so either they’re a really good hunter, or someone loves them. We should probably investigate. Before we keep them, I mean”

“Of course, you’re right, Martin. I’ll look into it. Although they’ll still need somewhere to sleep in the meantime”

“I, uh, Sasha and I might have already-

“I’ve got it!” Tim interrupted

“Yes?”

“Shit’s fucked” he said solemnly, spinning Jon’s chair and pushing the laptop into his hands.

Jon gave him a blank stare.

“Thank you for your professional assessment, Tim”

“Anytime” he grinned

“Do you have any recommendations to ‘unfuck the shit’?”

“Nope!” he replied blithely, reaching for the mug of tea and taking a sip

“Actually that wa-“ Martin began, before being cut off again

“There’s some old fashioned tape recorders in storage. Try them. Wouldn’t be surprised if Elias has some kind of ban on any technology older than the 1980’s working in this place”

“Having a party without me?”

Sasha poked her head round the door, followed by the rest of her, carrying a cardboard box lined with something soft and a familiar shade of maroon.

Jon looked at Martin.

Martin, who had been wearing a soft-looking jumper when he first came into the office.

Martin, who was now instead wearing a navy shirt, revealing a glimpse of dark forearms.

“Thought our new friend might want somewhere to sleep” Sasha placed the box on the floor against one of the nearest shelves, drawing Jon’s attention away.

“Martin. Have you given the cat your jumper?” he demanded, in a tone chillier than he intended

“Well, I just wanted them to be comfortable”

“That’s ridiculous. It’s freezing down here”

“Exactly. I don’t want them to get cold”

“What about you?”

“I’m a northerner. I’ll be fine” Martin protested

“What about when you’re heading home? It’s meant to rain later”

“Again, northerner, f _ine_ ”

It would have been significantly easier to stare him down if his eyes weren’t so distracting.

_Jesus, Jon, pull yourself together_

He could sense Tim watching them, but refused to give him the satisfaction of glancing in his direction to see the smug glimmer in his eyes.

“Prrp!” The cat trilled, slinking off the desk and into the box, pushing their paws into the fabric before curling into it.

“I think you’ve been outvoted, Jon” Sasha laughed

“As much as I’m enjoying the new addition to Team Archives, it’s half 5, so I love you all, but I’m off” Tim announced, making a beeline for the door. 

“Me too. Bye sweetheart. I’m sorry being around you turns me into a minefield of allergies” Sasha bent to give the cat a single scratch on the ear as she went.

And then there were three.

Well. Two and a cat.

“You’d better go too. Before the rain starts”

“Oh, yes, right” A strange look passed over Martin’s face, almost hurt. “I’ll just-“ he reached for the mug Tim had helpfully drained on Jon’s behalf. As he left, he turned back to look at Jon.

“You’re staying?”

“Just finishing up some things. And I need to buy a few more things for this one” he nodded towards the box.

“Right”

Was he going to linger in that doorway forever?

“Bye Jon”

He didn’t need to watch him leave. He could see him very well out of the corner of his eye.

“Bye Martin”

The door closed with a soft click.

He’d have to talk to Elias about that lightbulb. It was definitely getting dimmer.


	2. Nobody knows what it's doing there, least of all the cat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Call him paranoid, but Jon had the distinct impression he was being ousted from his position before he had even managed a week.
> 
> The primary cause of this concern was that every time he left his chair, he would return to find it occupied by a small, dark, sleeping figure, curled up in the centre where he had sat. 
> 
> “Now, come on. We’ve talked about this. Until you start recording your own statements, the chair is mine. I’m the Archivist here, not you”
> 
> He scooped them up, placing them on a spot he’d cleared on the desk, which they promptly jumped off again, in case Jon was under the mistaken impression that they were going to accept the indignity of being lifted by their belly and dumped on dusty wood instead of the soft, warm chair they had chosen to nap on. Jon laughed.
> 
> “Suit yourself”'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok I know I said this was going to be 15 chapters but then I went away for a few days and I had a lot of time to plot nefarious things and the entire thing got a lot bigger and a lot bolder and a lot longer than I initially anticipated. It is not going to be 15 chapters, and I'll update as often as I can, because frankly I need fresh attention to fuel me through the tangled mess I've made for myself, and a huge thank you to everyone who's read it so far!
> 
> It'll be worth it though, I promise.

Call him paranoid, but Jon had the distinct impression he was being ousted from his position before he had even managed a week.

The primary cause of this concern was that every time he left his chair, he would return to find it occupied by a small, dark, sleeping figure, curled up in the centre where he had sat. 

“Now, come on. We’ve talked about this. Until you start recording your own statements, the chair is mine. I’m the Archivist here, not you”

He scooped them up, placing them on a spot he’d cleared on the desk, which they promptly jumped off again, in case Jon was under the mistaken impression that they were going to accept the indignity of being lifted by their belly and dumped on dusty wood instead of the soft, warm chair they had chosen to nap on. Jon laughed.

“Suit yourself”

The investigation into the potential owner of the cat had thus far proven promising, in that it had brought up absolutely nothing at all. Granted, Jon wasn’t quite as scrupulous as he would be if he was researching a statement, and his efforts hadn’t extended beyond putting a few posters with a blurry photograph around the surrounding area – with his office number, not his home number, god forbid – and taking the cat to the nearest vet. The vet had been surprisingly difficult to find, and looked more like a pet shop than a vet, the walls on either side flanked with rows of glass cases, of which a glimpse was sufficient to tell Jon that the inhabitants had far more legs than he was comfortable with. It was staffed by a tall, dark-skinned young woman with hair dyed so blonde it was virtually white, with a small knotted white scar on one temple which branched out like lace. Her outfit seemed more suited to someone working in a second-hand bookshop, or somewhere that sells expensive soaps that all smell like a migraine, rather than a vet. She was holding something in her hands when they walked in, cooing to it softly, and as Jon approached she smiled, the kind of straight bright smile most people have to pay for, and turned towards one of the glass cases, placing a creature Jon would have called a tarantula were it not for the fact it was far larger than any tarantula had any right to be, the body alone the size of a guinea pig.

The cat, however, had taken an instant liking to her, leaning forward to lick the hand she had stretched out to them, palm and fingers facing delicately downwards, as if she was the protagonist of a Regency era film extending her hand in introduction to the lord of the manor. This should have endeared her to Jon, but his thoughts were turned towards that spider, twitching in the corner of his eye.

“Well, they don’t seem to have any microchips on them” there was that smile again, and Jon felt as if tiny hooks were being buried into his skin. He thanked her hurriedly and bundled the cat into the carrier he’d bought for them, determined to get both himself and the cat out of that vet and back to somewhere resembling normality as soon as possible

“You might want to buy them some worming tablets, if you’re keeping them” She added as they left

Jon did not turn back to look at her.

In his office, the cat clawed at the door, turning to Jon with a commanding yell.

“Alright, alright” Jon laughed again, watching the cat attempt to squeeze through the door the second he had begun opening it, too impatient to wait for him to finish the job.

“We need to get you a cat door” he muttered, deciding to take the hint and sneak into the break room for a cup of tea before trying to tackle the Montauk statement.

Sneak being the operative word, as Tim had taken to giving him significant looks and making pointed glances at Martin’s desk any time Jon passed their office for any reason, regardless of the innocence of his requests. In fact, the more banal his motivations were, the more significant a look he received from Tim. Which was unfair considering all of them were entirely legitimate. What, did Tim expect Jon to email them from across the hallway any time he wanted them to follow up on a statement? Was he expecting staplers to just levitate down the corridor of their own free will and volition? For files to roll their way into his office like tumbleweed? None of the statements he had investigated or recorded thus far had let him to believe in the existence of haunted stationary, and he sincerely doubted the statements had a sense of autonomy.

Still, he made a point of not looking through the open door of their office as he passed, willing his footsteps to be quieter as he slipped into the break room opposite and closed the door behind him, hoping to keep both cat and assistants from interrogating him for the ten bloody minutes it took for the ancient kettle to boil.

“Oh, er, hi, Jon”

Luck, it seemed, was in short supply in the archives.

“Hello, Martin” Jon kept his gaze firmly fixed on the kettle, hoping to make it boil faster through sheer force of will.

He wasn’t avoiding Martin.

He _wasn’t._

Tim would have been significantly more tolerable if he _had_ been avoiding Martin. There was always some reason or another making it impossible to avoid Martin even if he wanted to. A statement he needed Martin to look into, which the other two were too busy to warrant bothering them with, or the cat, who seemed to make their way into Martin’s lap with remarkable regularity, forcing Jon to venture out of his office on an almost hourly basis to hunt for them, in case Elias was prowling the Archives and decided to ask Jon in starched tones why, precisely, there was a cat in the Archives. It wasn’t that Jon thought Elias would object, necessarily, there were some very concerning scuttling noises under the floorboards that made Jon shudder to think just how big the rodents in the Archives actually were.

It was just that frankly, he couldn’t be bothered with the paperwork that was sure to follow once he finally did tell Elias.

He was neither avoiding Martin nor seeking him out. He was simply travelling along his own orbit and if Martin happened to cross that orbit, it was pure happenstance

Was he avoiding meeting Martin’s eyes with their ridiculously long eyelashes at any cost, however?

Oh, absolutely.

The fact was that Jon was acutely aware that he was not even remotely qualified to be Head Archivist, and there was at least a veneer of professionalism and respectability he was determined to maintain.

As far as that veneer was concerned, Martin Blackwood was a highly corrosive substance, one that Jon needed to avoid direct contact with.

So he continued his staring contest with the kettle, offering monosyllabic answers to any of Martin’s questions. He still hadn’t looked at Martin when he picked up the kettle to pour it, so he misses Martin lean across Jon to grab a mug, effortlessly, from the top shelf of the cupboard, the one that Jon avoids, Sasha can only reach on tiptoes, and Tim has to hop onto the counter to reach, despite multiple warnings about health and safety.

Or rather, he did see, out of the corner of his eye, and if wasn’t giving his full attention to Martin and he wasn’t giving his full attention to the receptacle of boiling water in his hand, you wonder what he was giving any attention to at all. Fortunately, the only real casualty of Jon's inattention was a mug, which flew off the counter, shattering.

“Sorry!” Martin scrambled to lean down, reaching for the biggest pieces, knocking into Jon in the process. Jon muttered something which might have been an apology of his own, but there were no witnesses present at the scene to confirm this. He moved to rifle through the cupboard for a dustpan when he heard Martin give a sharp hiss, turning to see him kneeling amongst the shards of mug, dripping blood onto the tiles.

“Jesus, Martin!” his tone as sharp as the piece of ceramic in Martin’s hand. Martin flinched, almost imperceptibly.

“Sorry” he murmured again, glancing at the floor.

“No, no, I…” what may have been another attempt at an apology died on Jon’s lips, feeling guilt pool in his stomach to match the slowly growing puddle of blood beneath them. Wordlessly, he reached for the closest absorbent item, leaning down to press the cleanest looking tea towel against Martin’s hand. To his relief, Martin seemed as disinclined to make eye contact as he was, but even with his attention laser-focussed on Martin’s hand he could sense his gaze flicker over him, feeling heat prickle at the back of his neck.

“Sorry” Jon whispered, the sound so quiet it would have required the use of specialist equipment to detect it.

“It’s fine” he whispered back.

A peal of laughter rang out from the office

The door swung open.

Sasha stood in the doorway.

“Oh, sorry!” her eyes flicked between them, widening at the sight of Jon clutching Martin’s hand in both of his with a formerly white tea-towel rapidly blossoming crimson.

“I leave you alone for five minutes” she shook her head, bending down in what little remained of the space in the breakroom to take the abandoned dustpan and brush sat next to Jon, and swept up the pieces. She slid Jon a look, nodding at Martin’s hand

“Are you going to bandage that or are you two just going to spend all day in here? If I need to get my coffee fix elsewhere I need to know”

“I’m perfectly capable of basic first aid, Sasha” Jon replied smoothly, answering her look with an unamused one of his own.

“Good. You might want to hurry up though, Tim’s plotting something you should probably be around for”

Sasha left, shaking her head at them.

“That sounds ominous” Jon muttered

“Just a bit” Martin laughed.

God, Jon could just drink that laugh.

As it happened, the second drawer of the cabinet held a dizzying array of first aid materials, to the extent that a more suspicious person might have wondered if someone in charge of the Archives was anticipating a lot of slightly-more-than-minor injuries to occur. But neither Jon or Martin had reached that level of suspicion, and simply put it down to Elias being overly attentive to health and safety requirements in the workplace. Although had either of them really paid attention they would have noticed the woeful lack of fire exits

Which for a building full of items so prone to combustion would seem a little like an oversight were it not for an apparently ample quantity of fire extinguishers.

Martin’s hand suitably bandaged - which did nothing to soothe the searing heat in Jon’s stomach - they followed the enduring sound of Tim and Sasha’s laughter and headed to the office.

Tim sat in his chair, or rather, he had one leg hooked over the arm of the chair and the other draped over the corner of his desk, waving a laser pointer at the opposite wall. Sasha was perched on the edge of Martin’s desk, watching the cat scrabble to chase the dot of light as it darted across the room.

“Glad to see you’re being productive, Tim” Jon said dryly, raising an eyebrow at him.

“I am, actually. If you insist on abandoning your child to the care of others, I have no choice but to entertain them. I take my cat parenting duties very seriously. Unlike you. You’re a terrible cat father, Jon” Tim spun round, swinging his legs down from the desk and crossing one over the other, clasping his hands together in an uncanny imitation of Elias. Out of the corner of his eye Jon saw Martin stifle a smile.

“He has a point, Jon. You haven’t even named them yet” Sasha added, crossing her arms in mock disapproval

“I was waiting to see if anyone came forward to claim them before I presumed to name them” Jon protested

“Excuses, excuses. How shall we punish him for his crimes, Sasha?” Tim turned to her with mischief in his eyes

“Oh. Jail, I think” she said solemnly

“It is decreed! Jail for the Archivist! Jail for the Archivist for one thousand years!”

“You stole that from twitter”

“Don’t try and distract me with the knowledge that you have twitter, Jon. I’ll find it later. The sentence has been passed and you are doomed to pay it. You are to be confined to your office and denied all Blackwood tea privileges, pending a parole hearing”

“If Jon’s in jail, who’s going to run the Archives?” Martin asked, still trying to stifle a smile.

The cat in question had finally noticed that the mysterious red dot had disappeared, and had jumped onto Tim’s desk to investigate. They padded across Tim’s laptop, sat on the keys, and gave one loud, insistent meow.

Tim clicked his tongue.

“Who will be our new Archivist?”

At the lack of immediate attention, the cat reached one paw towards a tape recorder sitting abandoned next to Tim’s laptop.

_“Statement of Ivo Lensik, regarding his experiences during construction of a house on Hill Top Road, Oxford. Original statement given March 13th, 2007. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London._

_Statement begins…”_

Jon’s voice rang out through the office, the tape recorder giving it a crackly quality, like paper newly set alight. At the words ‘Hill Top Road’ the cat let out a low growl.

No.

The growling was on the recording.

The four of them stared at the cat, the growling continuing throughout the tape. The cat washed their face.

“It’s like they’re trying to read it with you” Martin laughed.

Tim turned off the tape.

“Well, I think that settles it. Jon, we’re demoting you. The cat is the Archivist now. You can be deputy head archivist”

“So let me get this straight…you’re sending me to jail, demoting me, and replacing me with a cat”

“That’s about the size of it, yes”

“Alright” Jon sighed. “In that case, your new Archivist has work to do” he took a step towards the cat.

“Not so fast! A new name means a christening”

“You’ve never set foot in a church in your life, Tim”

“Not true, and also not the point. We’ve got to do this properly” Tim reached for his laptop, opening youtube and swiftly typing a line into the search bar. The opening bars of the Lion King blared through the speakers as Tim dipped one finger into the mug next to his computer, tracing a line on the cats forehead before lifting them into the air. The cat looked at Jon, narrowing its eyes just a fraction as if to say ‘Look at the indignities I suffer’

Martin and Sasha laughed. Jon buried his face in one hand.

“Alright alright. That’s quite enough” He gently released the cat from Tim’s grasp, pulling them close. “You’ve tormented both of us quite enough”

“Shhhh, deputy head archivist. Off to jail with you!” Tim pointed towards the door, grinning.

“What was this plot of yours, by the way?” Jon asked as he turned to go

“Privileged information for the Archivist only. You’ll just have to wait and see”


	3. When there's a cat in the Archives, you've got to stay updated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim and Sasha stage an elaborate plot to cure Jon of his workaholic tendencies, and give Martin a little of the love and appreciation he deserves. The Archivist just gets dragged along for the ride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's taken so long to update folks! This chapter took a slightly meandering path to get to where I wanted it to go, and work has been kicking my ass the last few weeks, but I hope you enjoy what is nothing but good old fashioned Archival assistant banter
> 
> Edit: I've made a tiiiiiiiiny little edit from November to October. No you're not going mad. I did change it. Yes I should edit my work. Yes I did get myself totally confused about the canon timelines even though I am taking canon wayyyyyy off piste, trying to force the logistics of birthdays matters to me.

There was

something

 _inside_ the Archives.

Jon had taken to using his weekends to feed the newly christened Archivist and attempt to get ahead on recording some of the statements without any interruptions, distractions, or laser pointers. Although he didn’t exactly relish the quiet, haunted atmosphere of the abandoned Archives, the cat was good company, accompanying all of his statements with a steady purr. Occasionally they would growl, but if there was any pattern or significance to what prompted this, Jon had yet to identify it.

Today, though, there was a rustling. There at the back of his office, beyond the reach of the lightbulb, there was a rustling that was definitely too large to be a rat.

The Archivist was on the desk with their head buried in a bowl, so that ruled them out.

“Who’s there?” Jon called out, pulling on the low, bored drawl he usually reserved for the end of statements, trying to sound like a no-nonsense academic and not a man who was about to be murdered in his office at 9am on a Saturday morning.

The rustling turned into whispers and a hushed giggle. Jon reached for his phone, flicking on the camera flash. A silhouette shifted between the shelves, blending into a taller shadow.

“No don’t move that one!”

“I’m just trying to increase the space”

“Leave it! It’s load bearing!”

“Can’t be bearing as much of a load as I am listening to your fussing, Tim”

“It’s not fussing to care about structural integrity!”

“Sasha? Tim?” Jon blinked at the two figures crouching behind the bookshelf.

In front of them was an intricate construction of folders, balanced between the end of the bookshelf and the furthest wall of the office. It was multi-layered, and as Jon moved the camera light, he saw it stretched all the way back to the darkest corner, where a single spider crawled across the top surface, trying to make sense of its new territory. Jon suppressed a shiver at the sight of its legs, inching their way towards him.

“Hi boss” Tim said through gritted teeth, glaring at the folder he was trying to reposition with his fingertips.

“I suppose this is the ‘privileged information’ you’ve been hiding from me all month?”

“It’s for the Archivist. A mini Archive of their own, so they don’t get bored when we abandon them at the weekend”

“We didn’t want them to be lonely” Sasha gingerly pulled away from her handiwork, manoeuvring herself around Tim so she didn’t knock anything over and straightened up, smiling at Jon.

“Very touching” There was no reason to admit to anyone that the cat didn’t have the opportunity to get lonely, since they spent every weekend curled up on Jon’s lap. That would open a line of inquiry about his social life he did not want to answer “Nice as that is, how did you get in here? I distinctly remember locking the office when I left”

“Lock-picking is an essential skill requirement for the job, Jon” Tim stuck his tongue out in concentration, tweaking the position of one of the folders.

“Where’s Martin? I’m surprised you didn’t haul him into your little enterprise” Jon enquired, trying to sound politely disinterested in Tim’s response.

“We did. He’s making tea”

As if summoned, there was a soft sweeping sound behind Jon as the door was nudged open.

“Uh…guys?”

Martin stood at the end of the shelves with a nervous expression, holding a tray with three mugs on it. With the lightbulb directly behind his head the effect was…interesting.

“Oh, er, hi Jon. We didn’t think you’d be in the archives this early on a weekend”

“So you broke in to make a play area for the cat. Yes. I know. How, er, how’s your hand?” he nodded towards Martin’s hand, now bandage-less and trembling just slightly under the weight of the tea-tray.

“My hand? Oh, fine. All better. You did a good job” Martin smiled

Jon hoped the section of the office he was standing in was dark enough to hide the blush he felt burning at the tips of his ears. Despite his determination to avoid any physical contact with Martin, his visits to the office had only become more frequent as the weeks progressed.

Well, with Tim and Sasha inevitably sent out on field work, there was nobody else to ask.

“Do you want tea?”

“No, thank you. I should really be getting on with some work”

“No, Jon!” Sasha grabbed his shirt and spun him back to face her “You are not working on a Saturday! Do something else!”

“I needed to feed the Archivist”

“And now he won’t need feeding again until lunchtime. Get out. Go and relax” her wide brown eyes bored into his insistently.

“And let Tim have free reign of the Archives? He’s already demoted me and replaced me with a cat, I’m not having him stage a full scale rebellion”

“It’s a beautiful day. You can’t skulk down here all weekend”

“I’m not going anywhere until Tim leaves”

“You can’t rush art, Jonathan” Tim said loftily

“I’d hardly call it art”

“You take that back. Sasha, make him take that back, if I didn’t have my hands full I’d fight you myself”

“Nobody’s fighting anyone! Stop squabbling, all of you. Jon, if you’re going to insist on spending your whole weekend in the Archives like a hermit, which, by the way, I know you’ve been doing for weeks, I’ve seen the food wrappers in the bin, the least you can do is take a cup of tea. Sasha, drink your coffee before it gets cold and Tim?”

“Yes, Martin?”

“Your folder Archive is beautiful. Everyone happy now?”

Jon gaped at him.

He, well, he hadn’t thought Martin was useless, far from it, but he certainly hadn’t thought him the type of person to scold a room full of his colleagues, including his direct superior, like they were unruly schoolchildren.

He should not have enjoyed that.

“Well. I. Thank you, Martin” he took the tea from the tray with only token reluctance, and squeezed between Martin and the shelf, trying not to breathe or touch him both out of fear that he’d drop the other mugs and he’d injure him again, and the fear that any physical contact with Martin would send his body into shock.

The cat meowed at him, looking down at the half-filled food bowl and back up.

“What? What is it? You’ve got food”

The Archivist stared at him. Jon stared back, unblinking. He sipped his tea.

It was stronger than he usually liked. A thought flitted across his mind that this was because Martin had made the tea for himself, not for Jon, but had given it to him anyway.

“You’re not having any more”

Another meow. Jon leaned towards them.

“You might have the rest of my staff wrapped around your paw but the Puss-in-Boots eyes won’t work on me”

This was the biggest lie ever told in the Archives.

Tucked away in the various drawers and cabinets of Jon’s office there was another laser pointer, one of those sticks with a mass of feathers at the end - which had already been thoroughly savaged by the claws of the Archivist - and three (3) catnip mice. Anyone hacking into Jon’s bank details would also have found that his household expenditure included far more salmon and fresh tuna than a healthy human would ever be able to consume in a week. Or a cat, for that matter, but Jon was indulgent, not sensible. Beneath Jon’s desk was a ‘proper’ cat bed, a spare one he’d texted his old girlfriend Georgie to let him take back in what she laughingly referred to as ‘the divorce’, which had been thoroughly ignored in favour of the makeshift cardboard bed, still lined with Martin’s jumper.

“Have you ever considered that maybe they’re fed up being cooped up in a lightless box all day every day?” Sasha suggested, tilting her head at the cat.

“They’re not cooped up. Your office has a window. They go and sit there sometimes. They chatter at the pigeons”

“Exactly! Poor thing’s probably bored stiff. Forget the file Archive. They need a holiday. Come on sweetheart, let’s go for a walk and leave these grumpy men to it” she lifted the Archivist, only sneezing once as she pulled them towards her, ignoring the chorus of gasped protests from the three men, and headed for the exit.

Jon pressed a hand against the door, blocking Sasha’s escape.

“You’re trying to kidnap the Archivist”

“No. I’m catnapping them, and it’s for the good of everyone in the Archives. They should be catnapped more often. In fact, I think it should be a weekly occurrence”

Jon narrowed his eyes

“This isn’t about the cat at all, is it?”

“What an accusation! The cat is my highest priority” Sasha sneezed

“You forgot the antihistamines today didn’t you”

“Yeah” she sniffed “Please open the door Jon, I’m dying. I’m fading away into nothing”

“What happens if they run away. They could get hit by a car”

“You’re fussier than Tim! They’re not going to run away. They’re a good cat”

“And if you drop them?”

“I’m not going to drop them! Martin, would I drop them?”

“No, no, I’m not getting involved anymore. I’m just going to put these down” he wandered over to the desk, placing the tea-tray on top of Jon’s closed laptop. Jon opened his mouth to complain about liquids in close proximity to electrical equipment, but barely managed to draw breath.

“Everyone shut up! The masterpiece is finished” Tim announced, sauntering out from the bookshelves with his hands extended, palms upward.

Sasha and Jon were still staring each other down, Martin hovering behind them, fidgeting with the abandoned mugs of coffee.

“I got up at 5 to work on this! Five! Look upon my work, ye mortals, and despair”

“I wonder you will still be talking, seignior Stoker. Nobody marks you” Sasha muttered

“Why are you using Shakespeare against me? I’ve done nothing to deserve it”

“If you’re not going to play along you could at least distract Jon so I can make a break for it”

“I thought the unveiling of my great creation was a very good distraction”

“Well it’s not-“ Sasha sneezed again “-working”

With each sneeze, the Archivist gave Sasha a startled look, which is reasonable if you’re a relatively small creature being held by a larger creature who seems to be undergoing controlled explosions at random intervals.

Tim stepped between Jon and Sasha, running a finger down the line of Jon’s jaw.

“What are you doing?” Jon murmured, narrowing his eyes as watched Tim’s eyes travel his face

“Just admiring the view” Tim replied lightly.

There was a click, and Jon felt the door move behind him.

“Go, Sasha, go!”

Tim pulled Jon towards him, pulling the door open in the process and steadying Jon with a hand on the small of his back. Jon couldn’t see anything in the flurry of movement, but he heard Sasha scuttle through the door. Tim kissed him lightly on the nose, then released him, grinning.

“Please tell me this wasn’t your plan the whole time” Jon felt a little breathless

“Not initially. But Martin here was worried about how much time you’ve been spending in here, and so are we, so now we-“

Martin’s phone rang, the sharp, blaring sound that comes as a default but nobody under the age of 40 who doesn’t absolutely loathe themselves actually uses. He shrank to a quarter of his usual size as he answered.

“Hi, mum. I was going to call you later, I thought you’d still be asleep now. No, that’s not what I meant, I just thought you’d be tired, I wanted you to get some rest. No, I’m not busy…”

He paced, disappearing down between the bookshelves. Tim and Jon’s eyes followed.

“Is he ok?” Tim mouthed, shooting Jon a concerned look.

Jon made a gesture combined of the world’s smallest shrug and several blinks which Tim took to mean ‘I don’t know’.

Martin stopped pacing, pausing in the darkness at the far wall. Through the gloom they could see him curl into himself, his voice fading to a low murmur almost too quiet to catch.

Unless you’ve stopped breathing, and you’re listening very, very hard.

Jon hadn’t realised he’d stopped breathing until he noticed Tim holding his own breath, the pair of them poised on either side of the aisle like sentinels, not even trying to disguise themselves from Martin’s notice. He couldn’t make out the words, only the faint hum of a voice over the phone speakers, but Tim’s dark brown eyes peered through the faint light, his back bolt upright as he strained to catch the conversation.

“…yes, I got the card. Thanks, mum”

Tim frowned at Jon.

“Card?” he mouthed, then grabbed his arm, tugging him away from the shelves, casting a quick glance to check Martin was out of earshot

“When’s Martin’s birthday?” he said in a frantic whisper

“How would I know?”

“You’re his boss. You must have it on file”

“Yes. Not committed to memory!”

“What kind of boss are you?”

“Why does it matter anyway?”

Something hard and sad passed over Tim’s face.

“What are you two whispering about?” Martin asked, emerging from the dark, a wisp of spiderweb caught in his curls.

“Ice cream. It’s probably the last sunny day we’re going to have this year and I am running out of other ways to force Boss Man out of the office. Coming?” Tim said, smooth as silk, never looking at Jon but somehow managing to throw a glance at him regardless that said ‘Get your coat on. _Now_ ’. Defenceless against this wordless demand, Jon did so.

At the entrance to the institute, on the cold stone steps leading down to the vast wooden doors, they found Sasha, cross-legged, dangling the end of her long plait of shiny black hair in front of the Archivist’s face and pulling it away every time they moved to swipe at it. Her laugh echoed faintly off the walls.

“What happened to the great escape?” Tim stood on the topmost steps, hands in his coat pockets with a smile Jon had seen on him countless times, always in the vicinity of Sasha, but had never registered until that moment.

“Alas, defeated by a door” Sasha lamented

“Happens to the best of us” Tim grinned, absently touching a scar on his forehead Jon remembered him getting on a very drunken night out during their early days in the Archives

“Where are you escaping to?”

“Ice cream”

“Bit cold isn’t it?”

“ _Southerners_ ” Martin murmured in despair. Jon laughed, quickly disguising it as a cough and hiding his face in his scarf when Martin shot a glance in his direction. Tim ignored them, hopping down the steps to hold out a hand to Sasha, who let him pull her to her feet in one fluid, seamless movement. The Archivist stared at her, indignant at her sudden abandonment of their game. A wordless conversation passed between Tim and Sasha, expressed in nothing but the subtle flicker of eyes.

“You go on ahead. I just need to fetch something from the office. I’ll catch up”

“What about the Archivist? They-” Martin began, but Tim was already bundling them into his military-style coat, leaving just enough buttons undone that their little black head peeped out.

“You can’t smuggle a cat into an ice cream parlour”

“Won’t know until we try” Tim winked, pushing the door to let in a blast of cool October air.

The sky was a light, cold blue, the kind that sharpens the edges of everything around it and pricks the edges of your lungs to say ‘Hey. It’s cold. Did you notice. Did you notice. Good. Wear a scarf’

Martin was not wearing a scarf.

Jon touched the end of his own, wondering if he should offer it to Martin, only to find Tim throwing his around Martin’s neck before his thought had fully formed.

“What are you doing?!” Martin swatted at him

“You’ll get cold”

“It’s eight degrees! It’s practically tropical!”

“Well, it’s annoying the Archivist, and Jon’s already got one, so…”

They both turned to look at him.

Tim’s eyes glittered with mischief. Martin gave the tiniest nod. He unwound the scarf, reaching for one end, letting Tim take up the other, and the next thing Jon knew it was thoroughly tangled around his neck, although not enough to completely strangle him. Just about.

“Ah-“ Jon spluttered in protest.

“The needs of the Jonathan are greater than the needs of the Martin and Tim” Tim said sagely

“Definitely” Martin nodded

“I look ridiculous”

“You look adorable” Tim grinned.

Jon glowered.

“Do I need to remind you I’m your boss, Timothy?” he slipped into his ‘Head-Archivist-Who-Definitely-Has-A-Handle-On-His-Job-And-Workforce-And-Wasn’t-Usurped-By-A-Cat’ voice, although he was beginning to suspect it had no effect on anything at all.

“Oh, ouch. There’s no need for full names amongst friends”

Jon raised an eyebrow.

“Jonathan?”

“It’s ok when I do it” Tim shrugged.

The Archivist wriggled under Tim’s coat. He wrapped an arm around himself, clutching them tighter.

“Maybe I was too quick with the naming, Marquis de Wriggle-pants” he said, looking down at the head still peeping comically out of the folds of his coat.

“ _The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,  
It isn't just one of your holiday games;  
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter  
When I tell you, a cat must have three different names” _Martin said matter-of-factly

Tim frowned in confusion. Jon peered at him.

“Is that a poem?”  
  
There was a glint in Martin’s eye, and he started to walk just a shade faster, reciting as he went as if he was a professor on a field trip.

“ _First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,  
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,  
Such as Victor or Jonathan-“ _he shot Jon a look he might almost have called sly _  
“-George or Bill Bailey--  
All of them sensible everyday names.  
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,  
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:  
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter--  
But all of them sensible everyday names.  
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,  
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,  
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,  
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?_

He looked different, reciting poetry. Bolder. Like someone had traced around the edges of his body in stark black ink. Jon and Tim sped up, trying to follow Martin’s pace, getting close enough to see the faint smile playing at the corner of his mouth. His voice was as soft as it ever was, the gentle northern accent slipping into something a more exaggerated, almost posh, the slightest shift in tone and inflection, still unmistakeably Martin, but another Martin. A Martin who scolded his own boss for bickering in the Archives.

How many Martin Blackwoods were there?

The imposter in question kept walking, never looking back or even giving a tilt of the head to indicate that he knew whether Jon and Tim were still behind him or not, although anyone observing the scene from the opposite angle would have seen Martin’s eyes dart to the side on occasion, seen him drop the pace just a shade upon realising that Tim and Jon weren’t as close behind him as he thought.

“I can’t believe I’m attracted to a man currently reciting one of the poems from Cats” Tim muttered in amused despair, just low enough for Jon to catch without Martin hearing them.

Jon blinked.

What followed was an expression best summarised by picturing a cloud of question marks floating around Jon’s head.

Tim laughed.

“What? You weren’t the only one who noticed our Martin”

“I didn’t, I-“

“It’s alright boss. You’re definitely higher on the Blackwood Tea List than me” he flashed Jon a smile that fell just short of reaching his eyes.  
_  
“Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,  
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,  
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum-  
Names that never belong to more than one cat.  
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,  
And that is the name that you never will guess;  
The name that no human research can discover--  
But the cat himself knows, and will never confess.  
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,  
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:  
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation  
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:  
His ineffable effable  
Effanineffable  
Deep and inscrutable singular Name_”

At this, he stopped, nearly making Tim crash into him, and turned to scratch the Archivist on the head. Tim stared down at him, his usually sharp and mischievous expression soft in a way Jon doubted he wanted him to see, but the lack of fog in the air betrayed the fact that Tim had stopped breathing.

“Where are we going, by the way?” he tilted his head, finally looking at Tim

“I actually hadn’t thought about it, I was just walking. Wait! There’s a place near Victoria that does ice cream. And cronuts!”

Tim took off down the street, still huddling the Archivist under his coat. Martin hung back, laughing at the sight of Tim charging away from them, clutching the cat like an expectant mother. Jon found himself smiling in turn. He tugged at the scarves, suddenly feeling unbearably warm. He saw a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, of Martin reaching forward to help-

Oh. No.

Absolutely not

Jon set off in pursuit of Tim, blessing the cold autumn air that soothed his burning cheeks, and refused to look at Martin, who was matching his determined pace with infuriating ease. They walked in silence, catching up with Tim in a matter of minutes.

“Caught up eventually” he grinned, sliding Jon a quick glance he couldn’t read. How did Sasha understand this man?

Jon scowled

“What _is_ a cronut, anyway?”

“The unholy child of a croissant and a donut. They’re fantastic”

“I’ll take your word for it” Jon said dryly

“Oh ye of little faith!” he stopped in front of a doorway, shooting one furtive glance through the glass, making sure none of the staff were paying attention. He waved Jon and Martin in front of him.

“After you, gentlemen” he tipped his head in the best approximation he could make to a bow while he had a cat tucked into his coat.

Jon and Martin made no attempts to move, so Tim placed one hand behind Martin’s back and gently pushed him towards the doorway. As Jon went to follow, Tim grabbed his arm, pushing several notes into his hand.

“Ice cream’s on me. I’ll get us a table before anyone notices our little feline pal here, ok?” he murmured

Jon nodded, and made another move forward only to find himself yanked back again by Tim.

“Be nice to him, yeah?”

Jon blinked at him. When had he ever not been nice to Martin? He could barely function around the man, sure. But he’d always been polite.

Hadn’t he?

Tim slipped straight past them, flashing the man at the till a bright smile as he passed, and disappeared into a booth in the far corner. Martin squinted at the formidable list of flavours written on a chalkboard above their head in wonderfully artistic yet entirely unreadable cursive.

“What does that one say?” he whispered, gesturing to a word at the bottom of the first column. Jon adjusted his glasses, as if that would make a difference, and followed Martin’s hand.

“Charcoal” he involuntarily wrinkled his nose

Martin laughed

“Interesting. I’m getting that then” he paused, paling slightly, his eyes flicking towards the list of prices.

“I’ll get it” Jon burst out, a little louder than he intended “That is, I mean, Tim said he’d pay. For all of us. He gave me money” He held the notes between him and Martin.

“Oh!” the tips of Martins ears darkened under the bright glare of the ice cream parlour lights “Uh, thanks”

“You should thank Tim, not me” Jon nodded towards the booth where Tim’s head was just visible, evidently occupied with hiding the cat.

“What’s Tim having?”

“…I didn’t ask” Jon mentally cursed himself. “Could you check?”

As Martin disappeared to chat to Tim, the bell at the entrance to the door tinkled, and in swooped Sasha, holding a heavy looking canvas bag that clinked as she walked. She scanned the ice cream parlour, smiling at the sight of Jon, her eyes sliding past him towards the corner booth. Jon followed her gaze, feeling the nucleus of a laugh form at Tim’s hand waving merrily at them.

“What’s in the bag?”

Sasha’s eyes flicked to Jon, then back to the booth, checking for signs of movement on Martin’s part. She pulled a card and pen out of the bag, leaning it against the counter and scribbling in it before pushing it towards Jon with an expectant look.

“His birthday was last week” she said quietly. “Monday”

“Oh”

Fuck.

He added a hasty scrawl of his own, and pushed the card back to her.

“He never said”

Sasha shrugged

“I mean, it’s Martin. He wouldn’t”

“How did you-“ Jon’s question was cut off silently by Sasha raising her eyebrows “-you hacked his file didn’t you”

Sasha’s eyes widened in exaggerated shock, throwing one hand to her chest

“You wound me, deputy head archivist!” her laugh somewhat ruining the tone of mock affront. She turned her attention to the list of flavours, prompting another hoot of laughter.

“Olive oil and pine nut?! Seriously?”

The man behind the till shot Sasha a glare, and she clamped her mouth shut, looking at Jon with glittering eyes.

“What are we talking about?” Martin materialised behind them, looking between Sasha and Jon with a puzzled look.

“I was just remarking on the imaginative selection of flavours” Sasha explained, trying and failing to school her face into a more neutral expression, locking eyes with the man at the till. “Think I’ll just stick to hot chocolate. With marshmallows”

“What’s Tim having?” Jon forced himself to meet Martin’s eyes as he spoke, making an effort to obey Tim’s earlier instructions even though the entire process made him feel like he’d swallowed lava.

“A scoop of blueberry, a scoop of bubblegum, a scoop of spearmint, and ‘A fuck-tonne of cronuts’” he finished with air quotes. Jon frowned.

“That sounds like a disgusting combination”

“He insisted” Martin shrugged

“His funeral” Jon muttered. “Are you _sure_ you still want charcoal? Last chance to change your mind”

Martin nodded, with the serious expression of a man resigned to his fate.

To his credit, the man at the till made no comment on the bizarre cocktail of flavours Jon requested, although he did find time to throw Sasha another withering look and Martin a glance that was far too close to admiring for Jon’s liking, although Martin seemed mercifully oblivious. The three of them made their way back to the table, the cones precariously balanced between them, to find themselves met with Tim’s backside sticking out towards them, his head hidden under the table. Jon cleared his throat, and Tim emerged, holding a furious looking Archivist. Martin looked back at the man on the till to check if he’d clocked the cat, receiving nothing but a dazzling smile in response. An icy feeling pooled in Jon’s stomach. Tim slid back into his seat, clutching the Archivist tightly, pushing them down out of the view of the cashier. Martin perched next to him, putting down the box of cronuts and offering his hand out to the Archivist, who batted their head against it affectionately. He smiled, and Jon felt the icy feeling dissipate. Sasha tucked herself in opposite Tim, hands curled around her hot chocolate.

Which left Jon sitting directly across from Martin.

It wasn’t a big booth, seemingly designed for children, or well-mannered badgers with a taste for ice cream and a fondness for pretending to be human, rather than average-sized people. Sasha had her knees jammed between her body and the table, and Tim was sitting a fraction taller than you’d expect him to be, meaning that he was sitting with his legs folded up underneath him like a schoolchild who wasn’t tall enough to reach the desk. Martin’s legs were crammed beneath the table, far too long to fit. Jon couldn’t avoid brushing against him as he sat down, and if Martin stopped breathing at the same time he did, well, he was too preoccupied to notice. He stared down at his own tub of ice cream, stirring it absent-mindedly.

A pale brown hand waved in front of his face, snapping the connection between his thoughts and the hypnotic vortex he had stirred into his slowly melting ice cream.

“Earth to Jon?” Sasha laughed

“Hmm?” Jon blinked multiple times, struggling to blow away the fog that had crept around the edges of his thoughts. When had that happened?

The rest of the archival gang were looking at him with varying degrees of amusement. Including the Archivist, which was not an expression Jon had ever seen on them before. The Admiral, the cat he had shared with Georgie, had looked at him with a wide array of expression over the year and a half they had lived together, but he had never seen him look _amused_.

“What did you get?” Tim asked, with the air of someone who had asked the same question somewhere between two and twenty two times already.

“Oh. Rum and raisin”

Tim wrinkled his nose.

“What are you, seventy?”

“I’m not defending my ice cream choices to a man who combined blueberry, bubblegum and spearmint” Jon protested

“For the aesthetic. Bi pride, look” Tim brandished the dripping remainder of his cone in Jon’s face.

Sure enough, the colours swirling into each other did make up the colours of the bisexual flag, the lurid pink of the bubblegum merging into the pale purple of the blueberry blended into a radioactive shade of blue. How that blue had ever come to be associated with spearmint was beyond Jon, but the question sat in his mind, scratching at it insistently like the Archivist if he fed them five minutes later than usual. He pulled his phone out of his pocket to google it, tuning out the continuing chatter around him as Tim and Martin took licks from each other’s cones - at Tim’s insistence - comparing flavour choices and agreeing that charcoal ice cream was as disgusting as it was pointless. He was faintly aware of the loss of contact as Martin and Tim got up to get a less terrible flavour, Tim frogmarching Martin back to the counter despite multiple very vocal protests, but had fallen too deep into the labyrinth of interconnecting Wikipedia articles to pay either of them much notice.

Something licked his hand.

He looked up.

The Archivist stood on the table, face centimetres away from Jon’s hand, tongue sticking out in a way that made it look as daft as it was adorable.

“Hi you” he smiled, halting his research to scratch them on the ear.

“Oh I see. Zones out and completely ignores us but as soon as the cat wants his attention he’s all over them! Get a room, you two” Tim teased

“Maybe the cat is better company than you, Tim” Jon shot back

Tim mimed being shot in the heart, making a big show of removing the non-existent arrow from his chest.

“Well, now that you’re finally back in the room with us, I think it’s time for the surprise” Sasha pulled the bag out from under the table, pushing it towards Martin.

“Happy belated birthday, Martin” she gave him a soft smile.

“Happy birthday” Jon murmured, and it was him, not Sasha, who Martin chose to smile at in return, the only person on the table who hadn’t bought him anything.

He reached into the bag, pulling out a bottle of red wine, an implausibly large box of Yorkshire Tea, and a more sensibly sized box containing a teapot with a highland cow printed on it.

“I saw your screensaver, figured you liked them” Sasha explained, watching Martin stare at the teapot.

“Thanks guys” he whispered, voice cracking.

“Next year we can do something on your actual birthday instead of me sending Sasha on a mission to hack into your personnel file, yeah?” Tim clapped him on the shoulder. Martin gave a wordless nod, biting his lip. The beginnings of tears glinted at the bottom of his eyes. 

Tim took a deep breath, preparing to sing, but Sasha clapped a hand over his mouth.

“No singing. Save that for karaoke”

“Karaoke?” Tim and Martin said in unison, Tim with unrestrained delight, Martin with confusion. Sasha grinned.

“What? You thought that was the end of it? It’s Saturday night, Martin deserves a party, Jon needs to get out more, Tim needs to sing in a controlled environment” she gave him a stern look to cut off any protests “And I want to get drunk and sing Bohemian Rhapsody with my friends”

Jon and Martin both started at that.

He’d always got on with Sasha, sure, in that kind of companionable way where you can carry a decent enough conversation at work but all communication effectively ceases the moment you clock off. He hadn’t realised Sasha thought of him as a friend.

Martin, upon hearing this, tipped from ‘on the verge of tears’ to picking up the Archivist and burying his face in their fur, hiding a faint sniffle. Tim and Sasha gave him a concerned glance, sharing another of their mysterious eloquent looks between them, then both reached for a cronut, deciding the best way to take mercy on Martin was to let him have his moment without fuss.

“What were you reading that was so interesting anyway?” Tim said through a mouthful of cronut.

“Emulsifiers”

“Thrilling” he said, deadpan

“It was, actually. The chemistry behind ice cream is fascinating, and emulsifiers are completely essential to the process. If you didn’t add emulsifiers, the ice cream would shrink down a lot more when its stored, it would melt too quickly out of the freezer, and it wouldn’t be as smooth. The problem when you make ice cream is that oil and water can’t mix with each other, they’re thermodynamically unstable, so they separate, and all the little droplets of oil start to join into each other and blend together instead of dispersing through the ice cream. Without emulsifiers, you’d just get a layer of the water components and the fat components from the milk floating on top, so they add the emulsifiers to act as a surfactant that sits on the surface of the fat droplets so they don’t come too close together and coalesce, although you still want a certain degree of coalescence in the mixing procedure because it creates a fat matrix throughout the ice cream to make it smoother and to prevent shrinking during storage. So actually, the real purpose of emulsifiers in ice cream is to displace the milk proteins on the fat droplets so to make partial coalescence more likely to occur. It’s very interesting”

Jon stopped, suddenly remembering that it’s useful to breathe from time to time.

Martin had put down the Archivist, who was happily lapping at the now melted tub of ice cream in front of Jon, and was watching him with rapt attention. Tim and Sasha settled for fond exasperation instead.

“Excuse me” a voice cut in, and they looked to see the man from the till standing in front of them, looking thoroughly in need of a pay rise. “You can’t bring animals in here”

“Oh, they’re not ours. We just found them hiding under the table” Tim flashed his most winning smile. He did not get a return on his investment.

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave”

Tim sighed, but made no argument, and they gathered their things, deciding to carry Martin’s presents between them in favour of putting the Archivist into the canvas bag, meeting a surprising lack of resistance, letting Martin carry him on his shoulder.

The air was noticeably chillier when they stepped out, and Jon suppressed a shiver, hoping to avoid a repeat of the earlier scarf fiasco.

“So, I believe we were promised karaoke?” Tim turned to Sasha. She shook her head.

“It’s too early. And we’ve been up since before the crack of dawn. _You_ might run on ice cream and good humour but _I_ need a disco nap. Come round to mine at six, we can have a couple of drinks, get pizza, or whatever takeaway Martin wants, and I’ll let you borrow that top of mine you like. Deal?”

“You in, Martin?”

“Um, yeah, I guess” he gave a nervous laugh. “I’ve never actually been to karaoke before”

“We don’t have to! If you want to do something else” Sasha rushed to reassure him with a smile. “We can do whatever you want”

“No! No. It sounds fun”

“Don’t worry Martin, there’s no way you can possibly be worse at singing than Sasha” Tim leaned one arm on Martin’s shoulder, smirking at Sasha. She swatted him.

“Pest” she said, without malice.

Jon watched them, hands firmly entrenched in his pockets, staring down the street at the traffic lights flicking red-amber-green-red-amber-green.

“Jon? You coming?”

“Oh, uh, no, maybe. I need to get the Archivist home. They need feeding, and I don’t think taking them into a bar is a good idea. I’ve got some work to sort anyway. I might join you later” he reached for the bag, gently slipping it off Martin’s shoulder. The Archivist fidgeted, seemingly irritated at being made to go home before the real party started. He considered giving Martin a hug, but decided against it, on the off chance it triggered a fatal arrhythmia. 

“Happy birthday, again” he gave Martin a brief smile, turning to walk down the street before he could see Martin’s response.

“Don’t make us kidnap you again” Sasha called after him

He didn’t turn around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone's wondering what Martin's second choice of flavours was, he had a scoop of dark chocolate and a scoop of cherry because he is a man of excellent taste.
> 
> Thank you all for your comments, they are literally fuelling me. If you want to yell about TMA, or watch my growling about writing in real time, come and find me on tumblr at @aprilslady


	4. Things we never said

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You have fourteen (14) new voice messages  
> Message from: Tim Stoker
> 
> “JON JON JONNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY. Where are you? We are fuelled, lubricated, and acceptably hammered and we are going to absolutely slaughter some karaoke. Taxi’s here, we’re going to the Anchor, get your fine ass there pronto or we’ll do all the fun songs without you and there’s be nothing left for you except My Heart Will Go On. Don’t get stuck with Celine, Jon. Hehe. Celine Dion rhymes with Jon…
> 
> (No it doesn’t!)
> 
> Don’t contradict me, Sasha Sashay-Away, it does!
> 
> (Um, guys? I think the taxi’s going to leave without us…)
> 
> No! Martin! Stop them! Stop that cab! I’ve always wanted to say that. Ok gotta go byeeeeee Celine Jon!”
> 
> Message deleted.
> 
> Martin's birthday karaoke session takes several interesting turns. Please read the new and updated tags for some little content warnings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Subtlety? I do not know her? Sasha James? I cherish her. Trying to give my lady the characterisation canon could not. Sorry this took me so long to update, work continues to kick my ass on a daily basis so I'll take my victories where I can get them.
> 
> I am taking some serious liberties with the canon timeline here because I am the god of this world and I shall never die.

Thud

Thud

Thud.

Jon gave his head a final thump against the desk before burying his face in his arms entirely. There was a soft nuzzle against his hand, accompanied by an unimpressed meow.

He glanced up, peeking at the Archivist through his hair. They stared back.

“Don’t judge me” he sighed, pushing his head up to squint at the laptop. Refusing to fully open his eyes, he dragged the cursor to press play, out of some misplaced hope that something had changed in the last sixty seconds.

If he strained, he could just about make out his own voice, faint and patchy, but Naomi Herne sounded like he’d done the entire recording while standing at the top of the Cairngorms, hundreds of miles away.

He trawled through the entire thing, scanning for any segment of it that was usable. Idiot. If he had the faintest idea of what he was doing he would have asked her to write it down as well. Not that he had anywhere left to store it if he did, he thought dully, casting his mind to the seemingly eternal rows of lopsided statements behind him, cheap folders bulging with fragments of follow-ups and research. The shelves were at least slightly less dusty than they had been at the beginning of his venture as now-demoted-Head-Archivist, but despite his best efforts, nothing got rid of the cobwebs. He counted his blessings he had never seen any of the prolific spiders creating these webs, and if nothing else he had to admire their work ethic. Within half an hour of clearing one web, another would materialise a few inches beside it. He’d timed it. So far the record was twenty eight minutes.

But no spiders.

Jon scratched the back of his neck, trying to banish the crawling feeling he had at the thought of who, or what, might be inhabiting his office, save for the Archivist, who chose that moment to prick up their ears and stare steadily at one of the shelves.

There was another rustle. Small, quick, definitely not Tim or Sasha-sized, not this time.

The Archivist bolted off the desk, crouching next to one of the shelves, tail whipping from side to side.

There was a flicker of shadows.

They pounced.

Jon’s phone rang, loud, insistent, and scaring the living daylights out of him. The phone had been stubbornly clinging to life since university – which was not as long ago as he would have his assistants believe – and his ringtone was still one Georgie had set for him. He did not hate ‘Rasputin’, he actually found it quite funny, but he would rather die than have Tim discover this had been his ringtone for the last decade because he didn’t know how to change it.

He should definitely change it.

The screen glowed at him. He glanced at the time. 7pm.

Already?

Tim at the very least would be drunk by now. He’d never seen Martin drink but his general demeanour and tea consumption gave the impression of someone who would be a complete lightweight, although he had already proven himself to be full of surprises. Nobody knew how much Sasha was capable of drinking, or which of her many drunken personas was the true one, if any. Jon stared at the phone. If he answered, drunk Tim would insist on him coming out, and would stop at nothing to make it happen, up to and including kidnapping him from the Archives. If he ignored it, drunk Sasha would insist on doing a welfare check and coming to find him, which had a 50% less likelihood of kidnapping.

He let the phone ring out. A tiny glowing envelope on his screen informed him he had one (1) new voice message. He rolled his eyes, reaching to turn it off.

The Archivist leapt onto the table, busily eating whatever it had found underneath the shelving. Jon thought, or perhaps hoped, he saw the signs of something many-legged trapped in their mouth.

“If that isn’t a spider we’re going to have to renegotiate the terms of your contract” he said, slipping into an imitation of Elias he had never dared use in front of the rest of the Archival staff, no matter how much he drank.

The Archivist gave him a slow blink in response. Jon smiled, scratching them on the head.

“You’re a good cat”  
  
His eyes slid to the clock, and he sighed.

“Time to surrender, I think. Goodbye, Archivist”

He gathered the remainder of his things, leaving the light on behind him.

After some of the statements he’d read lately, he didn’t want the Archivist spending their weekend alone in the dark.  
  
*****

He couldn’t sleep. Hardly a new thing, these days, but every few minutes he found himself reaching for his phone, running his thumb over the power switch. He needed to sleep. There was so much work to do tomorrow, and if he slept in and the Archivist missed their breakfast…

And yet

Maybe it wasn’t too late. What was it now, one in the morning? Tim would certainly still be in full flow, and he was sure to drag Sasha and Martin in his current.

It wasn’t loneliness that prompted him to turn on his phone, immediately buried under a barrage of alerts. He was just curious. That was all.  
  
*****  
  
**You have fourteen (14) new voice messages**

**Message 1-Received at 7.01pm**

**Message from: Sasha James**

_“Hey Jon, I’m not sure if you’re on your way or if you’re planning on coming or not, but we’re getting takeaway from that Nepalese place you like, so text me if you want anything, ok?”_

To listen to the message again, press 1. To save this message, press 2. To delete the message, press 3, to-

Message deleted

**Message 2-Received at 7.37pm  
Message from: Tim Stoker**

_“Oi. Jon. Where are you. I might have already started eating your share so if you don’t get here soon you’ll just have to starve. Also, if you’re coming, can you please bring some more vodka, our Martin is already drinking me under the table. It hasn’t even touched him. He’s like some kind of superhuman.”_

Message deleted

**Message 3-Received at 7.47pm**

**Message from: Sasha James**

_“Hi again. If I know you, you’re probably still at the institute buried under a pile of statements and folders and fussing over the Archivist but just once, don’t be a workaholic. I’ve managed to salvage some of the food off Tim, so there’s still some left for you if you want it. You have no idea the lengths it took to do that, Jon. Don’t let it be for nothing._

Do not leave me doing duets with Tim _”_

Message deleted

**Message 4-Received at 9:02pm**

**Message from: Tim Stoker**

“ _JON JON JONNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY. Where_ are _you? We are fuelled, lubricated, and acceptably hammered and we are going to absolutely_ slaughter _some karaoke. Taxi’s here, we’re going to the Anchor, get your fine ass there pronto or we’ll do all the fun songs without you and there’s be nothing left for you except My Heart Will Go On. Don’t get stuck with Celine, Jon. Hehe. Celine Dion rhymes with Jon…  
_  
_(No it doesn’t!)_  
  
_Don’t contradict me, Sasha Sashay-Away, it does!_  
  
_(Um, guys? I think the taxi’s going to leave without us…)_  
  
_No! Martin! Stop them! Stop that cab! I’ve always wanted to say that. Ok gotta go byeeeeee Celine Jon!”_

  
Message deleted.

**Message 5-Received at 9:29pm  
  
Message from: Sasha James**

“ _Hi Jon, just checking you’re ok. You’re still welcome to come if you want, I think it would be really good for you and it would mean a lot to Martin and_ -“

 _(CLOWNS TO THE LEFT OF ME, JOKERS TO THE RIGHT, HERE I AM STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH YOOOOOOOOOOU)_ Tim sang, loudly, and very off key, in the background

_*laughter*_

_Don’t be a stranger, ok?”_  
  
Message deleted.

**Message 6-Received at 10:07pm**

**Message from: Tim Stoker**

“ _Jooooooooooooooooon where are you???? It’s time to sing to the birthday man and if you’re not through that door in the next 2 seconds you are going to miss out on some sweeeeeeet harmonicas”_

_(Harmonies!)_

_I SAID WHAT I SAID!_

_(You don’t have to sing Happy Birthday to me, it’s fine)_

_Alright then_  
  
_*sigh*_

_“FOR HE’S A JOLLY GOOD FELLOW, FOR HE’S A JOLLY GOOD FELLOW, FOR HE’S A JOLLY GOOD FELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-“ gasp for breath –“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW_

_(And so say all of us!)_

_Including Jon, even though he’s being a dick and isn’t here”_

Message deleted.

**Message 7-Received at 10:56pm**

**Message from: Tim Stoker**

_“Jonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. Please come out. You’re being boring. I promise this isn’t going to be like your last birthday. Or mine. We never have to celebrate your birthday ever again if you just come out for one drink. It’s Saturday. You do not need to work tomorrow no don’t argue with me, you don’t_

_(Don’t go breaking my heart)_

_(I couldn’t if I tried)_

_(Honey if I get restless)  
  
(Baby you’re not that kind)_

_I cannot BELIEVE you’re singing that with Martin and not me!”_

Message deleted

**Message 8-Received at 10:58pm**

**Message from: Tim Stoker**

_“Seriously Jon, stop being a dick”_ Message deleted 

**Message 9-Received at 11:01pm**

**Message from: Tim Stoker**

_(Tim, stop it! Give me your phone)_

_“You’re hot when you get authoritarian”_

_(I’m being serious, Tim. If Jon doesn’t want to come out that’s on him, but stop pestering him)_

Message deleted

**Message 10-Received at 11:26pm**

**Message from: Martin Blackwood**

_“Wait, what? No! What are you doing?_

_(Ask him. He’ll listen to you. He’s got a soft spot for you)_

_What, no, that’s ridiculous, he’s our boss, he’s not, he doesn’t. He doesn’t even_ like _me_

_(Are you sure about that?)_

_Yes!_

_Oh my god. Oh my god it’s been recording this entire time. Shit. Shit. How do I delete it? Stop laughing, Tim, this isn’t funny, how do I delete it?????”_

Message saved

**Message 11-Received at 11:46pm**

**Message from: Martin Blackwood**

Seven minutes of muffled, incomprehensible static

Message deleted

**Message 12-Received at 11:54pm**

**Message from: Martin Blackwood**

*static*

_“I’ve never even heard him sing. Does he sing?_

_(I heard him once. He’s good)_

_(How have you heard him sing and I haven’t?)_

_(Clearly don’t pay enough attention, Stoker)_

_I can’t imagine it. What does he sing?_

_(Wait, wait, I want to guess. He looks like he’s into all that old 80’s shit. He_ definitely _listens to the Smiths)_

_*rustling*_

_(He totally does, even if you haven’t heard him. Martin, what’s your guess?)_

_Oh. I don’t, I don’t know. Probably something classical? Like opera? I only know a little bit of Carmen I heard at school, but it seems like Jon’s thing?_

_*rustling*_

_(Tell us then!)_

_(Nope! If he doesn’t want to come and share with us, I’m not telling. You’ll have to find out for yourselves)_

_(Ok, fine. If you were going to guess, like us, what would you pick?)_

_(If you’d asked me before, I’d have said he looked like an Ella Fitzgerald kind of guy)_

_(_ Who _?)_

 _(I’m going to pretend you didn’t just ask me who_ Ella Fitzgerald _is)_

_(I’m sorry I have good taste, Miss James)_

_(You wash your mouth out!)_

_I’m with Sasha on this one._

_(Martin! How could you betray me like this?)_

_I think you owe us drinks for that actually. It’s technically still my birthday_

_(Only for another minute. Who knew you were so cheeky with a couple of drinks in you? Always full of surprises, Martin Martini-Shaken-Not-Stirred)_

_More surprises than you know_

_(Is that a promise?)_

_Maybe_

_(I’m going to leave you two to your flirting for a minute and go and powder my nose)_

_That’s wasn’t, we weren’t, I wasn’t_

_(I was)_

Oh

_(Look, I get that you’ve got a thing for Jon. Don’t lie, I can tell, but I really like you, Martin, and I’m not just saying that because you’re fit and make amazing tea)_

_I…what about Sasha?_

_(That’s….Sasha and I just…aren’t. Not anymore)_

_You don’t have to do this because you feel sorry for me, because it’s my birthday_

_(_ Martin _. I’m not. I mean it)_

_I’m not, I’m not one of your…conquests_

_(Conquests. Ha. Do you know how many people I’ve actually slept with?)_

_…._

_(Eight)_

_But-_

_(Yeah. I know. Everyone thinks that. Even Sasha. Not that there’d be anything wrong with me if I’d slept with eight hundred people, if I wanted, but that’s not me. I just…like going out for dinner. Especially when I can get Elias to pay for it using Institute funds. Feels good to get one over on the boss)_

_I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed_

_(It’s fine. Normally I just laugh it off, but, I dunno. Forget I said anything, yeah?)_

_Wait, no, that wasn’t-I just didn’t know you saw me like that._

_(I do see you like that. Have done for a while)_

_Ok_

_(Wait. Really? I-)_

_*fabric rustling*_

Message deleted

**Message 13-Received at 0:13am**

**Message from: Martin Blackwood**

_*fabric rustling*_

Message deleted

  
**Message 14-Received at 01:02am**

**Message from: Sasha James**

_“Hi, uh, Jon? If you’re not asleep, and I’m pretty sure you’re not, because your circadian rhythm is completely inhuman, can I come up? I need to talk._

_Please”_

“Sasha?”

She stood there shivering, hands plunged deep into her pockets. Her eyeliner was as impeccable as ever, but there was a gleam in her eyes and the slightest tremble in her lip that suggested that wouldn’t be the case for much longer.

“Sorry for bothering you” she chewed her lip

“No, it’s fine, I wasn’t, you were right. I was still awake”

“Can I come in?”

“Oh! Yes.”

Sasha gave a grateful, if mirthless, laugh as Jon ushered her inside and towards the living room while he made a beeline for the kitchen.

“Do you want, um, do you want tea? I can’t promise it will be as good as Martin’s but-“

He stopped short at the memory of the second to last voice message, and glanced towards Sasha, who was standing in the doorway, staring intently at the criss-cross pattern of the tiles on the floor like she was trying to find the answer to something.

“Sasha? What happened?”

She blinked rapidly, summoning a smile as she rose her head to meet his again.

“Oh, I’m just, water would be fine, actually. Had a silly moment, I think. Fell victim to one of the classic blunders. Never go in against Martin Blackwood when sobriety is on the line” she gave another laugh, only marginally less hollow than the last. “I should go home, it was stupid of me to disturb you”

“No” Jon said softly, pouring a glass of water and handing it to her, noting the tremble in her hands as he did so. “I’m not, you know, I’m not good at this, but do you want to talk about it?”

“Are you asking me for a statement?”

Jon blinked at her.

“Only if you want to. Did you see something? Where were-“ Sasha gave him an indecipherable look, and he stopped short again.

“It wasn’t anything supernatural, Jon, if that’s what you’re worried about. Like I said. I just had a silly moment” she sipped her water,.

Jon gave an involuntary sigh of relief.

“Well, do you want to talk about it anyway?”

Sasha shook her head.

“No. It was stupid of me to come here”

“Sasha, you’re the most sensible and capable person I know. Whatever brought you here, I’m sure it wasn’t stupid”

“You give me too much credit” she murmured, but a soft smile passed over her face.

“I’ve got a spare room, it’s, well, it’s definitely not set up for guests, but you should probably stay there tonight. I don’t think it’s a good idea to go home on your own now”

“Thank you” her voice sounded tiny, uncertain in a way he’d never known from Sasha.

“I don’t think I’m getting any sleep anytime soon anyway, so if you want to sleep that’s fine, but you’re welcome to join me watching whatever abysmal late-night films are on offer”

“That sounds nice. I don’t think I’m going to sleep much either”

By all rights, Jon’s sofa should have been too small to fit them both comfortably. Most of the furniture had already been in the flat when he moved in, and it had never occurred to him that he might have friends, so there had been no reason to furnish it with anything more suited to company, but both he and Sasha were well accustomed to manoeuvring themselves into spaces not designed to fit them, and they curled up in their respective corners quite happily.

The offerings of late-night television were even worse than expected, leaving them with a choice between an endless run of infomercials, or the ‘The Thing’.

“I’m not really one for horror generally, but this one’s tolerable. The special effects are really quite impressive for their time” Jon glanced at Sasha

“Ok, as long as you do your Jon thing and explain everything you know about the special effects in excruciating detail so I don’t have to think about what’s actually happening”

Jon laughed

“I think I can manage that”

Sasha gave another shiver, and Jon uncurled himself to reach for the blanket thrown across the back of the sofa, a cheap, unassuming thing he’d picked up from some supermarket or another when his heating had broken for the fifteenth time. He held it out to Sasha, who promptly swaddled herself in it like a cloak, leaving nothing but her face peeping out of it.

They weren’t even 30 seconds into the film when Sasha slammed her hand onto Jon’s arm

“Why are they shooting the dog?!” she demanded, her look of indignant fury offset by the bright orange blanket framing her face.

“Just watch and see” said with the tone of someone talking to a chatty five year old who refuses to go to sleep.

“If anything happens to that dog….

…WHAT THE HELL, JON?!” she yelped, head flicking between him and the screen in rapid motion.

“What?” Jon laughed. “I didn’t make this”

“The poor husky! It just turned into a, a-“

“Thing?” Jon supplied helpfully, trying not to let his amusement show on his face.

“Now would be a really good time for you to do your Jon thing, you know” she glared at him

“We’ve read statements worse than this” he reminded her, unable to hide the smile this time “But fine. You know Rob Bottin was only 21 when he worked on this film? Most of the creature designs were his idea. The stress of the job nearly killed him actually, he was admitted to hospital several times while he was filming, he didn’t take a single day off for a year, most of the time he just slept on set”

“Sounds like you” Sasha nudged him, smiling.

Jon narrowed his eyes

“You have evidence in front of you that I’m not sleeping in the Archives” he said dryly.

“I have evidence you’re not in the Archives right now. I do not believe you sleep”

Jon muttered something about pots and kettles and their respective shades, which Sasha gracefully ignored, instead shifting closer into Jon’s side, throwing half of the blanket over him.

“What?” she asked in response to Jon’s puzzled look. “You looked cold”

“Sasha…” Jon wriggled away from the blanket. “Can we be clear on something? I’m not-”

“I’m not propositioning you, and I know you have no interest in propositioning me either” Sasha interrupted, her eyes glinting with their usual bright, curious gaze. “I know. That’s why I came to you”

“Good. Good. That’s…good. I just, had visions of being hauled into Elias’ office on Monday for a lecture about improper conduct with my staff”

“I’m not reporting you to HR or anywhere else. I know you’re finding it hard to adapt to the whole ‘being the boss’ thing, but you don’t need to try quite so hard. I know we weren’t as close as you and Tim were before we all transferred to the Archives, but I’m fond of you, and besides, you’re not really my boss-boss. I definitely wouldn’t sit under a blanket watching horror films with Elias”

Jon shuddered.

“ _That_ is an image I could do without”

Sasha let out a howl of laughter.

“Can you imagine? He’d be worse than you! He probably wouldn’t even say anything, he’d just sit there watching it in complete silence. No subtitles. And any time you took your eyes off the screen you’d realise he was just sitting there, watching you, looking really smug. And if you speculated anything about the plot, anything at all, he’d drop in some ominous comment that completely ruins the plot for you”

Jon laughed despite himself, caught up in the infectious wave of Sasha’s laughter. It never failed to surprise him how readily she could slip from the steady, capable work persona he had seen many times in the Archives, into this merry, laughing woman with a quick wit that was more than a match for Tim.

The thought of Tim made him think of Martin, which brought back that icy feeling that had pooled in his stomach at the ice-cream parlour.

“You know I’m right” Sasha insisted, breaking the thought before he could fall too far into that particular spiral.

“I know I’m worried that you’ve been making similarly savage character studies of everyone in the Archives and you’re coming for me next”

“They’re not _all_ savage. Like, I think you’re a lot less cynical than you want us to believe. I think you care a lot, Jon. Someone who doesn’t care wouldn’t fuss over that cat the way you do, for starters”

Jon made a noise of protest, but Sasha continued, the amusement flickering out of her eyes, replaced by something quiet and serious.

“I think, although I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I think-“ she took a deep breath “-if I said I didn’t understand sex and romance the way other people do, that you’re the only person I know who might understand what that’s like”

Jon said nothing, suddenly fascinated with a speck of dirt under his nail.

“What’s your basis for that assumption?” he asked, slipping into the stern Archivist voice despite himself. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sasha shrug.

“Just a sense. Maybe just wishful thinking. You know, don’t you, about me and Tim?”

“A little” Jon admitted. Sasha sighed.

“I love Tim. I really do. He’s my best friend, and I wanted it to work the way he wanted it to. More than anything. But I just. Couldn’t. And then I saw him and-“ she paused, chewing her lip as she debated how much to give away.

“Martin”

Sasha frowned at him.

“How did you-“

“He called me. Pocket-dialled me, I think. My own fault. I should have deleted the message sooner, but I needed to know”

“I’m sorry”

“What for?”

Sasha fixed him with a steady, unimpressed look.

“I know Tim isn’t the only one who’s taken a shine to Martin. I’ve got eyes” She focussed on a stray thread at the edge of the blanket, twirling it around her finger, watching the loose weave unravel. Jon watched, making no protest at this private destruction.

“You were right, by the way” he said after a moment. “I do like Ella Fitzgerald”

“Of course you do, she’s an icon”

“Tim and Martin were right as well, but you can never tell them that”

“I didn’t tell them I caught you singing Bollywood musicals in the Archives that time, you know your secret’s safe with me”

“You were right about the other things, as well. I understand”

“I used to think everyone felt the way I felt. I thought they were all just pretending that romance and marriage and sex were these amazing, transformative things and we were all just playing along because that’s what we’re supposed to do, and then I realised other people actually enjoy it, and they’re not just lying to themselves and the only person playing a part was me. It’s lonely”

“It is” he sighed

Their attention was pulled back to the TV by a sharp screeching. Sasha wrinkled her nose as Doctor Coppers arms were engulfed by the gaping mouth in the centre of the Norris-Thing’s stomach, rows of teeth ripping his arms from the rest of him. Jon adjusted the blanket over Sasha, making no argument this time when she tucked her head onto his shoulder.

“They’re prosthetic. Just a mix of wax bones and jelly and rubber veins” he explained, letting his chin rest on top of Sasha’s head and feeling his eyes slowly closing.

“It’s not even the gore that scares me that much. It’s the way none of them even notice when the people they’ve been working with for so long are just replaced by this alien creature until it turns into this horrifying thing and attacks them” Sasha mumbled sleepily.

“If you watch it closely you can tell who’s infected and who isn’t” Jon murmured into Sasha’s hair, too tired now to care about ‘appearing too attached to his colleagues’.

“How?”

“Look at the eyes. The ones who aren’t infected have this slight illumination that shows they’re still them”

“Promise you’ll check my eyes if I ever get possessed by an alien creature” Sasha shifted, looking straight into Jon’s eyes.

“I’ll have the flamethrower at the ready if you do” he promised, stifling a yawn.

“Good” Sasha fidgeted back into position, making sure the blanket covered both of them equally. She was far too tall for the sofa, legs flung over the end of it, and Jon had the final drowsy thought that their backs were going to kill them the next day, but there was no chance to act on it before he was finally dragged into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who isn't familiar with my gratuituous references, the first song Tim sings is 'Stuck in the Middle with You' by Stealer's Wheel, Sasha and Martin do a duet of the Elton John classic 'Don't Go Breaking My Heart' and Jon and Sasha are watching the 1982 John Carpenter edition of The Thing which is the only one worth watching and one of the only two horror films I actually like. If you want a quick lowdown of what the plot of the Thing is, I highly recommend watching the Pingu version on Youtube. I am not even remotely kidding. It's great. You will not regret it.
> 
> Edit: Oh also, I'm evil.


	5. This is halloween (Archives edition)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'If you asked the (Deputy) Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute to rank popular holidays from terrible to worst, Halloween would have fallen under ‘hellscape’.
> 
> What was there to like about Halloween?
> 
> Who actually liked seeing everything decorated with cobwebs and spiders?
> 
> (Except Martin)
> 
> Who actually wanted to dress up in questionable costumes and terrorise the streets of London?
> 
> (Except Tim)
> 
> And who actually believed humming songs from Nightmare Before Christmas was acceptable before the 1st of December?
> 
> (Except Sasha)
> 
> Not to mention the knowledge that the following days and weeks would be filled with people claiming to have had a supernatural encounter with a photocopier or complaining about their husband’s dressing gown being possessed.
> 
> So if a certain (Deputy) Head Archivist were to walk into his office on Halloween to find the folders which had previously been comfortably – if haphazardly - housed on shelves or boxes, now strewn across the floor, and a growing patch of dark dampness seeping into the carpet next to the shattered remains of a mug, he could be forgiven for feeling a little…frayed'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy halloween folks! And if you don't like halloween, happy 'it's a full moon' day. 
> 
> Here is my justification for all future divergence from the canon order of statements, wrapped up in more Archival banter. Except for the part where I felt many emotions about Tim.
> 
> I was too excited to get this out for Halloween so I will fix the grammar and spelling errors in a few days. Also for the record, Nightmare Before Christmas is absolutely a Halloween film. Jon's just ridiculous

If you asked the (Deputy) Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute to rank popular holidays from terrible to worst, Halloween would have fallen under ‘hellscape’.

What was there to like about Halloween?

Who actually liked seeing everything decorated with cobwebs and spiders?

(Except Martin)

Who actually wanted to dress up in questionable costumes and terrorise the streets of London?

(Except Tim)

And who actually believed humming songs from Nightmare Before Christmas was acceptable before the 1st of December?

(Except Sasha)

Not to mention the knowledge that the following days and weeks would be filled with people claiming to have had a supernatural encounter with a photocopier or complaining about their husband’s dressing gown being possessed.

So if a certain (Deputy) Head Archivist were to walk into his office on Halloween to find the folders which had previously been comfortably – if haphazardly - housed on shelves or boxes, now strewn across the floor, and a growing patch of dark dampness seeping into the carpet next to the shattered remains of a mug, he could be forgiven for feeling a little…frayed.

Jon scanned the room, taking stock of the carnage. The growing damp had reached the edge of several papers lying on the floor, and had begun to creep through them, staining the already yellowing paper a pale brown. Jon knelt down to rescue the soggy and pathetic thing before the tea could do any more damage, glaring at the statement which was blurring into incomprehensibility.

Tim would have been his prime suspect, but as he turned round the central row of shelving he saw that the file archive had met the same fate as the rest of the folders. Not Tim, then. There was no chance Tim would ever have voluntarily destroyed one of his own creations. It had taken weeks, multiple rounds of drinks, a kiss, and reluctantly swallowing his pride and apologising, to get Tim to forgive him for the time he’d accidentally knocked over the model of the Royal Opera House he’d constructed out of staples.

Of course, he had scarcely seen Tim since Martin’s birthday, because that would involve going to the office, and there was nothing, save for a fire, or the emergence of whatever mysterious thing was responsible for the intermittent rustling under the floorboards, that could compel Jon to go back to that office. There were too many distractions.

No, the Archivist was quite sufficient company.

Who was currently nowhere to be seen.

“Pspspsps!” Jon hissed, craning for a glimpse of the upper shelves. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d walked into the office to find them missing, only to spot them hours later perched atop the shelves, peering at him.

There was a flicker of movement that might have been a tail.

He stood there, waiting for the proud and plaintive mew that usually followed, demanding to be let down.

Silence

Rustling

The faint sound of music, muffled and distorted by distance and several layers of doors.

Jon eyed the shelves, and tentatively pressed his foot against the bottom, grabbing a higher shelf and trying his weight against it, only to immediately take a step back after realising it was about as stable as the average person’s mood at the end of a game of Monopoly.

He didn’t believe in ghosts, but on the slim chance he was mistaken, he did not intend to spend his afterlife trying to recover from the embarrassment of being crushed by a bookcase in his own Archives mere months after his predecessor had died at her desk.

Another despairing look around the room reminded him that whatever force of entropy had destroyed his office was in no hurry to help with tidying it, and set off down the corridor with a sigh, searching for something to deal with the Great Dampness soaking into the carpet.

The music grew louder as he approached, prompting another sigh upon recognising Sasha’s voice in the middle of a merry rendition of This Is Halloween.

_I am the who when you call “who’s there?”_

_I am the wind blowing through your hair…_ Tim chimed in, and Jon lingered in the doorway for a fraction of a second, forgetting how smooth Tim’s voice could be when he didn’t have half a bottle of vodka in him.

“Come on Martin!”

Jon pushed open the door to see Martin shake his head, trying to hide a smile as Tim leaned over his shoulder, dressed like-

“What on _earth_ are you wearing?”

A savage part of him felt vindicated by the way the three of them jumped as he spoke. Martin’s eyes darted around the room, trying to telekinetically brush away the sprawling cobwebs he had stretched across every available corner of the ceiling. One hand twitched, sending a fake spider flying across the room. At least, Jon presumed it was fake. Or it was very good at playing dead.

Tim was using Martin’s shoulder as an armrest, towering over him in shiny black heels. Jon made short work of giving him the once-over, taking in the fishnets and glittering corset, the mane of black curls hanging over dramatically outlined brows. He grinned, white teeth in sharp contrast to scarlet lipstick.  
  
“Well if it isn’t the Archives very own ghost! Where have you been, Mr Sims?”

“Running away from the circus the rest of you are apparently working in” Jon scowled, willing his tongue to stem the flow of furious words waiting to spring from his mouth.

Sasha cast a glance towards Tim, the way a sailor watches a storm cloud on the horizon.

Jon missed the shadow that passed over his face, his attention pulled towards a small toy bat hanging inches away from his head. He batted it away, wrenching it from the ceiling and sending it to the same floor-bound fate as the spider.

“Not keen on Halloween, boss? Ooh, that rhymed”

“I am _begging_ you to leave the poetry to Martin” Sasha groaned, clasping her hands together in mock prayer.

“Is it too much to expect you to actually do some work for once?” Jon snapped.

Martin flinched, and Tim’s hand moved to clutch his shoulder, tensing protectively.

Sasha adjusted her glasses, fixing him with a look that reminded him uncomfortably of his grandmother.

“Jon. I haven’t seen you for two weeks. Our only communication with you has been through post-it notes on statements that mysteriously appear on our desks asking us for follow-ups, and the only evidence we had that you’re alive is Martin bringing you cups of tea so we don’t walk in to find you desiccated like a coconut, even though you haven’t thanked him or even acknowledged his presence. So maybe if you want to check on how much work we’re doing like we’re toddlers, you could try coming up here once in a while” she said, smooth as silk, any trace of their moment of drunk/sleep deprived camaraderie blown away like smoke.

Tim gave a low whistle.

“Damn, Sasha. That was ice cold”

Sasha crossed one leg over the other, unblinking eyes fixed on Jon.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. That was…unwarranted”

“Thank you. Now, did you need us for anything, or were you just planning to use us as your verbal dartboard?” she raised an eyebrow

“I, ah, yes, actually. Have you seen the broom? There was an….incident”

Sasha frowned.

“Something, or someone, got into my office. It’s, it’s a mess”

“Is the Archivist ok?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I can’t see them”

Tim sprang into motion, walking down the corridor with surprising grace, the rest of them following. He stopped in the doorway, blinking at the chaos. Sasha and Martin hovered, peering over each shoulder, then turned to look at Jon.

“Who do you think did it?” Martin asked

“The ghost of Gertrude Robinson, trying to maintain her filing system?” Sasha offered, prompting a snort from Tim.

They picked their way gingerly across the floor, stepping around discarded statements, and the Great Dampness, now drying into a sad brown stain. Tim let out a howl at the sight of the file archives ultimate fate.

“No! I spent hours on that!”

“I’m sorry. Beautiful things weren’t built to last” Sasha gave him a consoling pat on the shoulder, gliding past him to scoop a pile of papers from the floor.

Martin was already squirreling away, attempting to stack the few folders that hadn’t vomited their contents over the floor of the Archives into piles. He knelt down to reach for the broken shards of mug-

A mew called him away, and he turned, looking down at the Archivist, who was sitting on top of several statements with a blank expression. Although, since most of their expressions were blank, that could have meant anything. Jon darted down to grab the mug before Martin decided to have another repeat of the breakroom incident. He didn’t think he could survive an encounter like that twice.

The Archivist mewed again.

“Hi, you. What happened here, hmm?” Martin asked them, but was met with silence. They rubbed themselves against his leg.

“You’ve got to tell me what you want, you know”

Jon felt his irritation melt away like candyfloss in water. Distracted by Martin kneeling down to scratch the Archivist on the ear, he didn’t notice Sasha steal past him with an armful of folders until he heard the squeak of the door hinge as she brushed past it.

“Sashaaaa” he said, voice laced with suspicion “What are you doing?”

“You’re doing too much. You need to learn to delegate. We’re going to split these up between us” she explained, darting past him and into the hall before he could catch her.

“I thought I was still the Archivist here, unless I’m very much mistaken” he called down the corridor

“We replaced you with Marquis de Wriggle Pants over there, remember?” Tim cut in from the shadows, still gazing tragically at the ruins of the File Archive.

“Don’t call them that”

“Cat needs to have at least three names, Martin said so. _I_ listened in class”

Martin scooped up the Archivist, holding them close as he stroked them on the head, apparently oblivious to them all.

“You’re hungry, aren’t you? Come on. Let’s go and get you some food. You’ve had a day”

Jon watched him go, the walls seeming to stretch eternally away from him in a way they’d never done before. Tim emerged from the shelving, glittering under the lightbulb.

Jon decided not to notice how much wearing heels seemed to flatter him, and opted to root around the folders instead.

“Have you ever thought about trying to come up with a functional filing system _before_ you record them all?”

“Elias wants them digitised, and without reading all of the statements…I don’t know. Gertrude seemed to have them categorised in some kind of date order, but the filing’s all over the place. Literally” he gave a dry laugh.

“All we’d need to do is skim through them for the date, give them new reference numbers that actually make sense, because whatever reverse year-month-day shit Gertrude had going on is downright senile, and then file them in order from that shelf downwards” he pointed to the shelf in the far corner “I mean they’re pretty much all on the floor now anyway, may as well just start over. Or, I don’t know, doesn’t even have to be date order. Colour-code them based on whether they’re spooky or weird or just downright disgusting, you do you, but I swear just thinking about the way Gertrude left it gives me a migraine”

“You and me both” Jon sighed, staring blankly at another dog-eared statement.

“Just think about it. I’m not trying to ‘steal your job’ or whatever, you can keep it. Just think Sasha’s right, you’ve been holed up down here for weeks and you won’t even talk to us anymore, what’s the point of having a team you never use?”

Jon gave a non-committal murmur, keeping his back to Tim and pretending to be engrossed in reading through the statement in his hands. There was a sound of fidgeting behind him.

“Why have you been avoiding us, by the way?”

“Hmm?” Jon didn’t turn around

“This job was already turning you into a hermit, but this is ridiculous. Did something happen that I don’t know about?”

“You tell me” Jon said quietly, turning to look at Tim, leaning effortlessly against a bookcase, and resented his new height advantage. He was used to having to look up to stare Sasha down, but Tim had always been on his level.

“If this is about Martin’s birthday…”

“Look, I’m not-“

“-Because you could have turned up, you know? The Archives aren’t going to burn down if you leave them to go to the pub for a few hours. And even if they do, who cares?”

“Well, the Archivist, for starters”

“Don’t change the subject”

“Well, is there anything about Martin’s birthday you want to tell me about?” Jon caught Tim’s eyes with his own, pinning him with the question.

Of the Archival staff, Jon was the only odd one out, curious hazel eyes against everyone else’s brown ones. But where Martin’s were warm and comforting, and Sasha’s were bright and keen, Tim’s were fluid, flickering through a dozen emotions like clouds over a full moon.

“Nothing that concerns you, no. But I will say, as your friend, even if you have no intention of admitting what we all know, you need to stop being such a twat to him”

“What are you talking about?”

“You barely speak to him! He’s trying really hard, and it’s like he’s just completely invisible to you”

“That’s not fair”

“Isn’t it?”

It was hopeless. If he spoke to Martin, every interaction was scrutinised like bacteria in a lab. If he didn’t, it was as great a crime as if he’d dropped the Archivist from the top floor of the building. What space was there to figure out what he did or didn’t feel for the kind, handsome, altogether too soft-hearted and constantly surprising man when everyone else was more interested in telling him how he felt and what he was than they were in just letting him puzzle it out for himself? As if Tim and Sasha weren’t their own kind of puzzle.

And he could solve none of them.

“I wasn’t. I didn’t-“ he sighed

A shadow fell over the floor

“Hi. I uh, I brought tea”

*****

Martin stared into the depths of the tea, swirling it mechanically.

Thud

A noise from the office broke him out of his trance. Peeping round the door of the office he saw Sasha, walking away from a heavy-looking pile of folders, dumped on his desk. Its companions sat on Tim and Sasha’s desks, looking no less formidable.

“Um. Sasha?”

Martin had been making a private study of the faces and moods of Sasha James, and he could spot Sasha-Means-Business with his eyes shut. The dark hair which had been cascading freely down her back at the beginning of the day was tucked back in a bun that was only messy thanks to the several pens speared into it, and she was holding herself at her full height, only a few centimetres shorter than Martin. Her glasses were the same as they ever were, large black square frames seeming to hold in the determination that glinted in her dark eyes. That was the thing about Sasha. Where Tim seemed to have the boundless energy and perpetual amusement of a spaniel puppy, held in balance by a meticulousness that was only surprising to people not paying attention, Sasha could flick from singing in the office to knocking Jon down to size without so much as a snap of her fingers.

“You sure he’s earned a cup of tea?” she nodded at the teaspoon, still dripping in Martin’s hand.

“Honestly at this point I think I just black out and the next thing I know there’s a tray of tea in my hands. It’s habit. Comforting, you know?” he gave a tiny laugh

“I know. You really are too nice for your own good”

“Not always” he murmured, glancing at the floor.

Sasha said nothing, but when he looked up he saw her watching him, the gap in conversation left wide open for him to fill.

“I haven’t been answering any of Tim’s texts”

More silence. Sasha sat down, the sharp focus in her eyes replaced by something softer. He sighed, sitting at his own desk and burying his face in his hands. Something soft brushed against them, the Archivist demanding attention. He smiled, running his fingers over the top of their head and scratching the spot he knew they always struggled to reach by themselves.

“Tim’s amazing, and funny, and…so out of my league. And it’s not like I’ve got a great track record, I mean I was the lad people would ask out for a dare just so they could laugh about how ridiculous it was to imagine anyone fancying me, and the only people who’ve ever shown an interest in me have all turned out to be, well, not great. I just. I want to trust him. No. I do trust him. He’s our friend. But I can’t stop myself trying to figure out what his angle is”

“First off, he is not out of your league. If I was into, well, anyone, I’d date you in a heartbeat”

Martin blinked

“Wait. What?”

“I’m aromantic” Sasha shrugged

Martin blinked again

“Tim knows. Had a bit of a revelation after your birthday, we had a chat about it, we’re fine. And Jon, actually. I uh, might have gone to his house in a moment of drunken madness and fell asleep on his sofa watching horror films”

“You, right, wait, what?”

How was he the last to know about this?

Sasha. And Jon. In Jon’s flat. Watching horror films together.

Fine. Totally fine. It would be ridiculous to expect the kind of relationship with Jon that Tim and Sasha had. Jon and Tim had the whole used-to-work-in-research-together banter going on, and apparently Jon and Sasha had some kind of secret bond that Martin was unaware of where they braided each others hair and watched scary movies. He couldn’t expect that kind of dynamic.

Martin instantly regretted thinking about Sasha braiding Jon’s hair. The image his imagination supplied him was unfairly flattering.

The Archivist butted against his stomach, and he moved his chair back, letting them leap down to curl into his lap.

It’s not that Jon was mean, exactly. Snapping at them wasn’t a regular occurrence. He wasn’t sure Sasha would let him get away with it if it was. Or perhaps she would. Difficult to tell. Sometimes he was lovely. That was the problem. Sometimes Martin would imagine Jon was looking at him the way he’d done on his first day in the Archives, holding the cat and gifting Martin with a soft smile like he’d done something extraordinary. Which he hadn’t. All he’d done was let a cat into the building because he was too distracted to notice them scoot past him, because he was completely incompetent. Only Jon hadn’t seemed to think so, and that was all the encouragement Martin’s traitorous heart needed to do the one thing he needed it not to. Hope.

Once you start hoping, it’s very difficult to stop, and every now and then he would catch Jon out of the corner of his eye and he thought he saw that look again, or at least something similar. In the breakroom, when Martin had cut his hand open. Not an exact replica, but a look of, what? Fondness?

Only ever out of the corner of his eye. It was only a matter of time before Jon’s gaze moved away, looking at anything and everything except Martin, confining all their interactions to the shortest possible collection of words and syllables, rather than actually _talk_ to Martin.

Still the hope lingered.

Stupid, sentimental, hopeless romantic Martin.

Then there was Tim. Tim, who seemed against all sense to actually enjoy Martin’s company. Everyone else, except maybe Sasha, always seemed to be searching for an exit whenever they spoke to him, but Tim? Tim sought him out, asking his opinion on the latest in his collection of garish Hawaiian shirts that should have looked ridiculous on him, but never did, dragging him out for lunch, leaning against his shoulder when he wanted to talk about a statement. Tim looked at him when he spoke to him, like he was actually interested in whatever Martin had to say.

Nothing had happened, after their conversation in the karaoke bar. No. Not nothing. They’d gone back to Tim’s flat, stealing kisses in the taxi, Tim’s hands gently holding Martin’s face, but the kisses had never gone any lower than Martin’s collarbone. There was nothing of Tim’s usual boisterous energy in those kisses, none of the desperate grasping Martin was used to from the previous men he’d dated. Tim was careful. It surprised him. He’d given Martin his bed, insisted on it, slinking away towards the spare room. Martin was the one who had pulled him back, pinning him in place with another kiss.

So why was Tim the one he doubted?

“Not the point” Sasha continued, breaking his reverie “Not about me. Tim may be many things, but he wouldn’t toy with his friends. Just talk to him, he’ll understand. And if he doesn’t, and he hurts you, I’ll make his life a living hell”

“Thanks” Martin smiled

“Goes both ways though. Tim’s my friend as well. Don’t hurt him” she added quietly

“What if we hurt each other?”

“I’ll probably just have to destroy the entire Archives and run away to fulfil my dreams of becoming a jazz singer”

“Seems reasonable”

Sasha laughed, and Martin felt his brief flash of jealousy fade into nothing. The Archivist stretched in his lap, digging their claws into his leg with a gaping yawn, and leapt onto the top of the tower of folders.

“What’s all this about anyway?” he asked, giving the Archivist a gentle push off the pile.

“Trying to save Jon from himself by splitting up the statements between us. If he keeps recording them all on his own he’s not going to have a voice left by the time he’s thirty”

Martin frowned

“He’s nearly forty”

Sasha glanced away from Martin, raising her eyebrows in a look that said she knew something he didn’t.

“He might have taken some artistic licence, that’s all I’m saying”

He reached for the top folder, flicking through the statement. Something to do with a girl whose father was a famous serial killer. The few words he did read sent a jolt of cold up his spine.

“Makes a change from endless follow-up work without actually being allowed out of the Institute. It’s like he thinks I’ll run out and get hit by a car if he lets me out of the Archives” Martin muttered, unable to keep that one note of bitterness from his voice.

“There’s an easy solution to that. Cut off his tea privileges until he starts giving you the work you want”

“The tea!” Martin scrambled out of his chair, finding several miserable specimens of tea, the teabags still floating in dark and polluted waters. He sighed, tossing them down the sink.

Having a boss who ignored you was one thing, but when work started to interfere with the tea making process, that was serious business

****

_Crash!_

Sasha’s head bolted up, wrenching her thoughts out of the statement she had been reading so fast it made her dizzy. Something about a pot? It had felt familiar. But why? There had never been a pot like that in artefact storage. There hadn’t. She’d remember. She’d catalogued everything in that place within an inch of its life.

The Archivist’s face hovered in front of hers, peering at her intently.

“What? What is it?”

They blinked

“I know you think that makes you look enigmatic and aloof but it just makes you look ridiculous” she told them, eyes flicking between the cat and the mug they had sent clattering to the floor.

The room was quiet. Too quiet. It was 4.30 already, and there wasn’t a trace of life to be seen, save for the Archivist.

Where was everyone?

She looked around, at the toy bat and spider that lay discarded on the floor, although she was certain they’d been on the other side of the room the last time she’d checked, at the fake spiderwebs still sprawling across the walls and ceiling, and the faint trail of glitter running from the door to Tim’s desk.

Then she remembered.

The Archivist bounded off the desk, darted under Martin’s, and sprinted across the room to take a running leap onto Tim’s, sending the top folder – and themselves – flying as they did so.

Sasha grabbed the Archivist, much to their indignance, and held them under their front legs, looking deep into their gleaming yellow eyes.

“You’re the one who ruined the Archives, aren’t you?”

They didn’t respond, which is unsurprising for a cat, who are not known for their tendency to be forthcoming with information. Especially one being subject to the indignity of being lifted into the air with their back legs left dangling like a ferret.

The traitorous Sasha hauled them down the hallway, depositing them in their basket and turning to share her recent discovery, only to find her co-workers engaged with more pressing matters, having managed to corral the shelves back into something that at least looked like it could be organised.

If you squinted

Upside down

Through a kaleidoscope

After several shots of tequila

But it _was_ better than it had been.

“Come on Jon, it’ll be fun!”

“I am not going to watch anything with you while you’re dressed like that”

“I am dressed in honour of Tim Curry, who is the second most attractive Tim in existence, after yours truly, so show some respect, Sonathan Jims”

“ _Tim_ ” Jon’s voice carried a warning, but the smile playing at the corner of his mouth betrayed him

“I can’t believe you’ve never seen Rocky Horror. I think that might actually be illegal”

“We could go and see Coraline?” Martin suggested, scrolling through Jon’s laptop, looking at cinema listings.

This seemed to unify them, as Jon and Tim’s heads snapped round to Martin simultaneously

“We are _not_ going to see Coraline”

On their own, their tone might have been described as icy, but together, they made the vacuum of space seem warm in comparison.

“It’s good! Why do you hate it so much?”

Sasha’s eyes turned towards Tim, expression flickering like a compass trying to find its bearings, debating how much to say.

It had been her idea to watch it the first time, back in the early days of their friendship. Neither of them had ever seen it, and one of her old friends from the school orchestra kept insisting that she just had to watch it, going on about how the score was ‘perfectly haunting’. They’d warned her it was creepy, but they worked at the Magnus Institute now. They could handle creepy. It was only a children’s film, after all.

Tim had gone quiet the second he saw the Other Mother, with those blank black button eyes. She hadn’t noticed at first, assuming he was just getting caught up in the story. The shivering was strange though. He just sat there, staring at the screen with an expression so vast and vacant it scared her, shivering like a puppy in the snow. She touched one hand to his arm, just gently, but she may as well have been touching thin air for all the attention he paid her. Even after she turned the film off, it took half an hour for him to feel solid again. They went for a walk, at Sasha’s insistence, and the moment they stepped outside it was like a string had been cut. He told her everything, about Danny, about Grimaldi…

She didn’t regret kissing him. Or the rest of it. She only wished she’d realised everything else sooner.

“Giant evil spiders aren’t exactly my thing” Jon replied, and Tim had shrugged on another dazzling smile so quickly you could be forgiven for thinking you’d ever seen anything else in his expression at all.

“All the more reason to come and watch Rocky Horror with us. I’ve even convinced Martin to dress up”

“As who?” Sasha demanded, unable to keep a note of incredulity out of her voice. There was no way she was going to believe Martin Blackwood would ever voluntarily dress up, not the way Tim did.

At least, not while sober.

“Well, I was trying to get him to be Rocky, but that was a bust, so he’s going to be like a better, sexier Eddie instead” he winked

At this, the tips of Martins ears went dark.

“I don’t know who ‘Eddie’ is, but fine. Sasha?”

She raised her eyebrows at him in lieu of a reply

“Are you in on this madness?”

“Yes, but you wouldn’t know who I’m going as anyway, so there’s no point in telling you”

“Look. I don’t like Halloween, I have a huge pile of work to catch up on after spending the whole day with you two trying to fix this place, I don’t have time for that kind of frivolity”

“Well, maybe if you spent a little more time on _frivolity_ , and let your cat roam around once in a while, they wouldn’t be so full of pent up energy that they destroy the entire Archive after you leave” Sasha gave a pointed nod towards the Archivist, curled up in their box, ignoring her.

Realisation dawned on Jon's face, and he stared at the Archivist with the look of a disappointed parent

“And you owe us after skipping out on Martin’s birthday” Tim insisted.

Jon opened his mouth to protest, but something in Tim’s expression stopped him, and he settled for a disgruntled noise of acquiescence instead. Tim beamed.

“Excellent. Although we still haven’t settled the question of who you’re going to dress up as….”

Sasha rolled her eyes.

“Pick your battles, Stoker. Besides, it’s easy”

The three men gave her a puzzled look

“He can be the Criminologist. He's got the look down already”

Tim and Martin burst into delighted laughter. Jon scowled, and the Archivist continued to sleep as if nothing had ever happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where it is glaringly obvious that I never watch any actual horror and just watch unsettling children's films, but let's be real, Coraline is a brilliant and creepy film and Jon and Tim would absolutely fucking hate it.
> 
> Oh, and Sasha was going as Magenta.


End file.
